National Materials Innovation Programme: Feasibility Studies Round 2

National Materials Innovation Programme: Feasibility Studies Round 2

Innovate UK’s National Materials Innovation Programme: Feasibility Studies Round 2 is closed. The official UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) opportunity page marks the competition Closed, and the linked Innovation Funding Service (IFS) record says that applications closed at 11:00am UK time on 24 June 2026. This page is therefore a historical reference to the completed cycle, not a live application listing.

The verified official pages do not announce a next round or a replacement deadline. Do not use the archived date as a future submission date, and do not assume that a later National Materials Innovation Programme call will retain the same budget, themes, eligibility rules, or application questions. If Innovate UK publishes another round, its new competition record should be checked directly before this entry is treated as current again.

Key details from the closed cycle

The metadata retains deadline = "2026-06-24" because that is the genuine closing date for this cycle. historicalReference = true tells the site that the date belongs to a completed competition and that the page should be presented as an archive entry rather than as an expired opportunity that still appears to invite applications.

What the competition was intended to fund

The competition offered feasibility-study grants for advanced materials innovations that could move toward industrial adoption. Innovate UK described the aim as speeding the translation of materials innovations across three prioritised high-growth themes and one strategic opportunity theme. The project had to be primarily about applied materials science, materials development, or a novel materials-deployment challenge. A proposal centred on an interesting material but unable to explain its end use, technical barrier, or adoption route would not have met the stated purpose.

The official IFS description defines materials innovation broadly. Eligible work could improve the functionality of existing polymers, metals, ceramics, or composites; develop and deploy new advanced materials; or deploy an existing material in a novel way to address a major technical barrier. The expected benefit needed to be concrete, such as better performance, improved efficiency, stronger UK industrial competitiveness, or environmental benefits including sustainability and resource efficiency.

The competition was not a general research award. The project needed to identify a specific sector and application, describe the opportunity for the technology to be applied, and explain future barriers to adoption. It also needed to show how the materials innovation could contribute to UK net-zero goals through areas such as sustainable supply chains and feedstocks, reduced energy use, lower emissions, or better resource efficiency. The official scope also required an end-user application and support from one of the eight IS-8 growth driving sectors in the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy.

Funding and project size

Innovate UK allocated up to £2 million to the competition, subject to receiving enough high-quality applications. That was a competition-level allocation, not a guaranteed award for every eligible applicant. The total eligible grant request for an individual project had to be between £50,000 and £100,000.

For commercial or economic activity under the Research, Development and Innovation Streamlined Scheme, the official funding rules set maximum support for eligible feasibility-study costs at up to 70% for a micro or small organisation, 60% for a medium-sized organisation, and 50% for a large organisation. Research organisations undertaking non-economic activity could share up to 30% of total eligible project costs across the consortium. Within that research participation limit, the official page described funding of up to 100% of eligible costs for an RTO, charity, not-for-profit organisation, public-sector organisation, or research organisation, and up to 80% of full economic cost for a Je-S registered academic institution using the stated costing method.

These percentages did not change the £50,000 to £100,000 project grant-request range. Applicants had to enter each organisation’s costs and funding details separately in IFS and explain the balance of costs and grant across partners. Subcontractors were allowed, but their costs were limited to no more than 30% of the project’s total eligible costs. Overseas subcontracting required a case explaining why a UK subcontractor could not be used; a cheaper overseas price alone was not sufficient.

Who could apply

The lead organisation had to be a UK registered business of any size. The business could apply alone or lead a collaborative project. Academic institutions, research and technology organisations, charities, not-for-profit organisations, and public-sector organisations could not lead a project or apply alone, but they could collaborate with the lead.

Collaborating organisations had to be invited into the IFS application by the lead. Each partner was responsible for entering its own project costs and completing its Project Impact questions. For a collaboration to be eligible, the lead and at least one other organisation had to apply for funding, provide a rationale for the collaboration, describe the structure in the application, and ensure that no one partner represented more than 70% of total eligible costs.

The competition also allowed non-funded partners. These could be UK, European Union, or other non-UK organisations, with their costs covered from their own resources. The official rules allowed non-funded non-UK partners to carry out work from their home countries and exploit results outside the UK. This was different from the requirement for funded organisations, which had to carry out their project work in the UK and intend to exploit results from or in the UK.

There was a limit on business applications: a business could lead one application and be included as a collaborator in two further applications. A business that was not leading could collaborate in any number of applications. Academic institutions, charities, not-for-profits, public-sector organisations, and RTOs could collaborate in any number of applications. The applicant and project team also had to satisfy Innovate UK’s sanctions, subsidy-control, financial-viability, prior-grant-compliance, and related checks.

Every project had to last between six and nine months, start by 1 November 2026, and end by 31 July 2027. Projects had to start on the first day of a month, and the applicant could not begin work until Innovate UK had approved the Grant Offer Letter. A delay during project setup could affect the actual start date, so this was a delivery constraint rather than a suggested planning milestone.

Themes and scope

The application had to select one theme and sub-theme. The three high-growth opportunity themes were:

• Future healthcare solutions: biocompatible materials or bioelectronic materials for medical use, including materials that interface directly with biological systems.
• Sustainable structural systems: circularity, surface engineering, design and deployment, or extreme environments for high-performance structural and functional materials.
• Power electronics and connectivity: wide and ultra-wide bandgap materials, or advanced connectivity materials for communication systems such as 5G, 6G, optical, RF, infrared, and radar applications.

The strategic opportunity theme was Metamaterials and metasurfaces. Its sub-themes covered future telecommunications and advanced connectivity, convergent electronic-photonic technologies, thermal or mechanical metamaterials, energy security and net zero, and healthcare. A metamaterial had to be a three-dimensional structure whose response or function came from the collective effect of engineered meta-atoms rather than from any individual constituent material. A metasurface was the two-dimensional version with the structural elements confined to a plane.

Innovate UK said it would not fund proposals that sat outside the listed themes, focused on chemical or raw-material synthesis instead of adoption in an end application, focused on digital tools such as artificial intelligence or machine learning rather than materials innovation, or focused solely on defence. Dual-use work could be considered when the primary focus was civil. The competition also excluded proposals without a clear and realistic sector and application opportunity or without the required end-user support letter. Subsidies could not be conditional on export performance or on using a fixed percentage of domestic inputs.

End-user evidence requirement

The end-user requirement was a central eligibility and scope condition. The applicant had to upload a signed letter of support from an end user operating in one of the eight IS-8 growth driving sectors. The letter had to be on the supporting organisation’s headed paper, be addressed to the applicant, refer to the specific project application title, identify the IS-8 sector, and include the signatory’s signature, title, position, and role.

The letter also had to explain the potential applications and benefits of the materials innovation from the end user’s perspective. It needed to describe future barriers and challenges to adoption in the relevant sector, which could include functionality, technical performance, or sustainability. Innovate UK did not accept an email chain, Teams chat, purchase order, invoice, generic memorandum, letter of intent, supply agreement, or other document that did not directly meet the project-specific support-letter requirements.

In IFS, the applicant had to type letter of support attached as the response to the letter-of-support question and upload the letter as a PDF appendix. The PDF could be no larger than 10MB, could be up to two A4 pages, and had to be legible at 100% zoom. That document requirement was separate from the broader project narrative; mentioning a potential customer without attaching the required letter was not enough.

How the application was structured

The closed competition used the Innovation Funding Service and divided the application into four sections:

1. Project details: application team, project title, start date, duration, research category, project summary, public description, and scope. The summary, public description, and scope answers could each be up to 400 words. URLs were not allowed in application answers.
2. Application questions: all questions had to be answered. Questions 1 to 8 were not scored, while the remaining questions were scored by independent assessors. The questions covered applicant location, animal testing, permits and licences, international collaboration, export control, trusted research and innovation, project theme, the support letter, need or challenge, approach and innovation, team and resources, market awareness, outcomes and route to market, wider impacts, project management, risks, added value, and costs and value for money.
3. Finances: each organisation entered its own project costs, organisation details, and funding details. Academic institutions had to use the stated Transparent Approach to Costing process and upload the supporting information required by IFS.
4. Project Impact: each partner had to complete its Project Impact questions before the lead could submit.

Several scored answers allowed one appendix, normally a PDF no larger than 10MB and no more than two A4 pages. The approach question could use an appendix for diagrams or charts, the team question could use a short personnel summary, project management required a project plan or Gantt chart, and risks required a risk register. The application also prohibited URLs in answers, including scored answers, because the assessors would not view or open them.

Before submission, the lead had to check that the information was correct, the proposal met eligibility and scope, every section was complete, and all partners had completed their assigned sections and accepted the terms and conditions. An application could be reopened after submission before the deadline, but it had to be resubmitted before the competition closed. That reopening facility ended with the deadline; it does not make the archived competition available now.

Assessment and practical record

The competition was competitive and had a finite budget. The IFS page said that a high-scoring project might still be unfunded if the available allocation was insufficient. It also stated that applications would be reviewed by three independent assessors, with scores contributing to the funding decision unless the applicant was told otherwise. Assessment considered the proposal’s technical and commercial case, team, market, route to adoption, wider effects, project management, risks, added value, and value for money.

The official timetable recorded the competition opening on 4 May 2026, closing on 24 June 2026 at 11:00am, applicant notification on 29 July 2026, and project start by 1 November 2026. The UKRI summary page also records that the closing date was corrected from 24 May 2026 to 24 June 2026 in an update dated 29 May 2026. The date stored in this page’s front matter is the corrected date, not the earlier value.

The closed-cycle record is useful to teams reviewing the programme’s requirements or documenting a past application, but it should not be used to prepare a new submission without a newly published competition. In particular, the amount, support-letter wording, theme list, subsidy rules, partner limits, form questions, and application appendices all belong to Round 2 and may change in a future call.

Official sources

• UKRI opportunity summary: https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/national-materials-innovation-programme-feasibility-studies-round-2/
• Innovation Funding Service competition details: https://apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk/competition/2469/overview/63ad7c49-77d4-4e13-b07f-0078c28d718e

Both official URLs were checked for this update. The UKRI page identifies Innovate UK as the funder and the IFS page provides the detailed rules and the closed status. No next cycle was announced on the checked official pages at the time of this update.