Scheme details
Area: Newcastle upon Tyne, Sunderland, County Durham, Gateshead, South Tyneside, North Tyneside, Northumberland
Categories: Finance & funding, Grant
Business stage: Start-up, Trading business
Page last updated: 04 December 2025
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), is offering up to 60 Women in Innovation Awards to women founders and co-founders of micro, small or medium sized enterprises (SMEs) across the UK. This is subject to a sufficient number of high quality applications being received.
Successful projects will receive up to £75,000 of grant funding and bespoke business support for 12 months.
A proportion of highly commended applicants who have not been awarded grant funding in this competition will be offered bespoke business support for 12 months.
The aims of this competition are to support Women in Innovation Award winners:
- whose innovation is aligned to one of the following three high growth sectors defined in the Government’s Industrial Strategy; Advanced Manufacturing, Digital and Technologies and Life Sciences
- who have a late stage start-up with ambitions to grow a scalable business which will involve raising considerable investment in the next 12 to 24 months
Eligibility
Your project must:
- have a grant funding request of up to £75,000
- last for 12 months
- start on 1 July 2026
- end on 30 June 2027
All projects must commence and finish on the dates stated. Any funded business needs to carry out their project work in the UK and must intend to exploit the project results from or in the UK.
Projects must always start on the first of the month, even if this is a non-working day. You must not start your project until your Grant Offer Letter has been approved by Innovate UK. Any delays within Project Setup may mean we need to delay your project start date.
You must only include eligible project costs in your application. See our overview of eligible project costs. For specific guidance, see the eligibility section in this competition.
You will be made ineligible if you exceed the Minimal Financial Assistance limit. You must submit a complete declaration as part of your application.
Key Dates
- 26 November 2025 Pre-recorded briefing event: watch the recording
- 26 November 2025 Pre-recorded Question Set Support session: watch the recording
- 26 November 2025 Pre-recorded Business Stage Support Session: watch the recording
- 26 November 2025 Competition opens
- 8 January 2026 Live Questions and Answers: register to attend
- 4 February 2026 11:00am Competition closes
- 1 May 2026 Applicants notified
- 1 July 2026 Project start