UK-Switzerland CR&D Round 3
Innovate UK
Award
£1,000 – £450k
Total fund Up to £3m
Deadline
Closes in 11 days (3 September 2026)
Where
UK-wide
Summary
UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £3 million for innovative projects in specific technology areas. You must collaborate with at least one Swiss implementation partner applying under the equivalent Swiss Innosuisse programme.
Who can apply
Who can apply Your project Your UK project must: have a maximum grant funding request of £450,000 last between 18 and 36 months start on 1 February 2027 end by 31 January 2030 involve at least one grant claiming UK registered micro, small or medium sized enterprise (SME) The majority of the project work must be undertaken in the UK and Switzerland. UK project partners must carry out the majority of their project work in the UK and intend to exploit the results from or in the UK, and spend most of the funding within the UK. The consortium must include at least one business registered in Switzerland that is a separate legal entity and not linked to the UK partners and one research institute from either the UK or Switzerland in your consortium. However, if the Swiss applicant is an individual start-up, pre-market and less than 50 FTE, the requirement to include a research institute is waived. This is to ensure that projects encourage genuine international collaboration, not internal company research. Linked companies are considered a single entity under the parent company. Your project must demonstrate a balanced technological contribution by the participants from both countries and must be equally significant to all participants. No one country or project partner can represent more than 70% of the total project cost. Note: eligibility on the Swiss counterpart competition states that in a project with two cooperating partners, no partner may contribute more than 70% of the total person months to the project. Person months is the metric for the time in months devoted by staff to a project. No single country may contribute more than 70% or less than 30% of the total person months dedicated to the project. Person months refers to the cumulative time in months allocated by staff to the project. One person month is equal to 154 hours of full time work. Applications identified as not eligible by either Innovate UK or Innosuisse will not be sent for assessment. Your project must always start on the first of the month and this must be stated within your application. Your project start date will be reflected in your grant offer letter if you are successful. Your proposal must demonstrate a clear intention to commercially exploit the results of the project domestically or globally. You must only include eligible project costs in your application. See our overview of eligible project costs . Roles and terminology There must be a ‘project lead’ and this can be either an eligible UK or Swiss organisation. The project lead is responsible for managing the entire project. The ‘lead applicant’, is the organisation that starts the application on the Innovation Funding Service. This must be a UK organisation. UK lead organisation To start an application on the Innovation Funding Service (IFS), your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size. You must: be or involve at least one grant claiming micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) collaborate with at least one Swiss implementation partner applying to the Innosuisse programme, which must be a separate legal entity, not linked to the UK partners collaborate with at least one research institute from either the UK or Switzerland, however, if the Swiss applicant is an individual start-up, pre-market and less than 50 FTE, the requirement to include a research institute is waived Swiss organisations can be a project lead but cannot start an application on IFS. They must be added as a partner to the UK lead applicant. This is for system functionality reasons. More information on the different types of UK organisations can be found in our Funding rules . UK project team To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered: business of any size academic institution charity not for profit public sector organisation research and technology organisation (RTO) Only UK registered partners must be listed in the Project Partner section of your application on the Innovation Funding Service (IFS). Your Swiss partner will not receive any of this UK competition funding. Swiss partners will be funded by the Innosuisse programme following a parallel application. Each organisation in your consortium will receive funding from its respective national funding body. Each UK partner organisation must be invited into the IFS by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once accepted, partners will be asked to login or to create an account and enter their own project costs into the IFS. To be an eligible collaboration, the lead and where another UK organisation is part of the consortium, the organisation must: apply for funding when entering their costs into the application include rationale for the collaboration and describe the structure in your application ensure any one partner does not account for more than 70% of the total eligible costs Non-funded partners Your project can include organisations who do not claim any funding for their work on the project. Their costs will be covered from their own resources. These can include UK, EU and other non-UK organisations. Non-UK partners are permitted to carry out project work from within their home countries and exploit the results outside the UK. International partners Swiss partners do not need to be invited into Innovate UK’s application on the Innovation Funding Service. Swiss partners will be funded by Innosuisse following a parallel application. Subcontractors Subcontractors are allowed in this competition, but they are limited to no more than 20% of the total eligible costs of the UK participation. Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK and you must select them through your usual procurement process. You can use subcontractors from other countries but must make the case in your application as to why you could not use subcontractors from the countries providing grant funding for the project. You must provide a detailed rationale, evidence of the potential UK or Swiss contractors you approached and the reasons why they were unable to work with you. We will not accept a cheaper cost as a sufficient reason to use a subcontractor from a third country. All subcontractor costs must be justified and appropriate to the total eligible project costs. Number of applications An eligible organisation can only lead on one application. Any further applications by the same organisation as lead will be made ineligible. The first application will be the only one considered for assessment. An eligible organisation that is leading an application can be included as a collaborator in a further two applications and if not leading, can collaborate in any number of applications. Application guidance for Swiss organisations For guidance for Swiss organisations, see Supporting Information. Sanctions This competition will not fund you, or provide any financial benefit to any individual or entities directly or indirectly involved with you, which would expose Innovate UK or any direct or indirect beneficiary of funding from Innovate UK to UK Sanctions . For example, through any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any entity as lead, partner or subcontractor related to these countries, administrations and terrorist groups . Use of animals in research and innovation Innovate UK expects and supports the provision and safeguarding of welfare standards for animals used in research and innovation, according to best practice and up to date guidance. Applicants must ensure that all of the proposed work within projects, both in the UK and internationally, will comply with the UKRI guidance on the use of animals in research and innovation . Any projects selected for funding which involve animals will be asked to provide additional information on welfare and ethical considerations, as well as compliance with any relevant legislation as part of the project start-up process. This information will be reviewed before an award is made. Previous applications You can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition. If you have previously submitted an application that reached our assessment stage, you can re-apply once more with the same proposal. If there are minor differences to the proposal, but it is judged by us to be ‘not materially different’, the same rule applies. We will not award you funding if you have: failed to exploit a previously funded project an overdue independent accountant’s report failed to comply with grant terms and conditions Innovate UK may withhold a grant payment at any time if you have any outstanding sums due to us in relation to other projects. Subsidy control (and State aid where applicable) This competition provides funding in line with the Subsidy Control Act 2022. Further information about the Subsidy requirements can be found within the Subsidy Control Act 2022 (legislation.gov.uk) . Innovate UK is unable to award organisations that are considered to be in financial difficulty. We will conduct financial viability and eligibility tests to confirm this is not the case following the application stage. EU State aid rules now only apply in limited circumstances. See the Windsor Framework to check if these rules apply to your organisation. In the ‘Project details’ section of your application you will be asked questions to indicate if State Aid or Subsidy applies to your organisation. Further Information If you are unsure about your obligations under the Subsidy Control Act 2022 or the State aid rules, you should take independent legal advice. We are unable to advise on individual eligibility or legal obligations. You must not do anything which could cause a breach of Subsidy Control legislation applicable in the United Kingdom. This aims to regulate any advantage granted by a public sector body which threatens to, or actually distorts competition in the United Kingdom or any other country or countries. This award is classified as a Subsidy which does not form part of your Minimal Financial Assistance or de minimis allowance. Funding Up to £3 million from Innovate UK and at least CHF 3 million from Innosuisse has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant. This is subject to us receiving a sufficient number of high quality applications. We reserve the right to adjust funding allocations for any of our competitions under exceptional circumstances, for example, in response to changes in policy, portfolio funding considerations, or broader government funding decisions. Each country will fund its eligible participants according to their national procedure and funding rules. Funding conditions and eligibility criteria may vary between UK and Switzerland. The bilateral joint cooperation between the partners and its added value is an important aspect to be considered within the evaluation. UK Partners If your UK registered organisation’s work on the project is commercial or economic, your funding request must not exceed the limits below. These limits apply even if your organisation normally acts non-economically but for the purpose of this project will be undertaking commercial or economic activity. For feasibility studies and industrial research projects, you can get funding for your eligible project costs of: up to 70% if you are a micro or small organisation up to 60% if you are a medium sized organisation up to 50% if you are a large organisation For experimental development projects which are nearer to market, you can get funding for your eligible project costs of: up to 45% if you are a micro or small organisation up to 35% if you are a medium sized organisation up to 25% if you are a large organisation For more information on company sizes, refer to the company accounts guidance . If you are applying for an award funded under State aid Regulations, the definitions are set out in the European Commission Recommendation of 6 May 2003 . Innovate UK may revoke our decision to provide funding without notice if government commitment for this initiative is withdrawn. Research participation for UK Organisations The research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 30% of the total eligible project costs. If your consortium contains more than one research organisation undertaking non-economic activity, this maximum is shared between them. Of that 30% you can get funding for your eligible project costs of up to: 100% of your eligible project costs if you are an RTO, charity, not for profit organisation, public sector organisation or research organisation 80% of full economic costs (FEC) if you are an academic institution Eligibility criteria for claiming 80% of FEC funding Research organisations must use the Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC) method as the Je-S form has now been decommissioned. We pay 100% of the 80% Full Economic Cost (FEC). On IFS only enter the 80% being claimed. To find out more see our: Cost Guidance for Academics .
Full details
Description Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and Innosuisse, the Swiss Innovation Authority, will invest up to £3 million from Innovate UK and at least CHF 3 million from Innosuisse in innovation projects. This is subject to a sufficient number of high quality applications being received. The aim of this competition is to enhance UK and Swiss collaborations and capabilities in the emerging technology fields, resulting in the development and delivery of new innovations and applications across a broad range of sectors. Your proposal must address innovation in the fields of Semiconductors, Life Sciences or Engineering Biology. UK registered businesses must collaborate with at least one non-linked, registered Swiss implementation partner applying under the equivalent Swiss Innosuisse programme. UK registered organisations must apply through the Innovation Funding Service (IFS) portal to Innovate UK. Your Swiss partner will not receive any funding from Innovate UK. Swiss partners must apply to, and will be funded by, Innosuisse for the Swiss component of the project set out in this application. In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process. This competition has a funding limit, so we may not be able to fund all the proposed projects. It may be the case that your project scores highly but we are still unable to fund it. Our experience from similar competitions suggests that you could have an 11% chance of success. We consider a range of factors when determining whether to provide funding to applicants. This includes an assessment of prior conduct, such as any outstanding payments owed to Innovate UK or UKRI. Such factors may influence the funding decision, potentially resulting in a refusal of funding or an award subject to additional scrutiny. We also reserve the right to adjust funding allocations for any of our competitions. This may be in response to changes in policy, portfolio funding considerations or broader government funding decisions. This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated in this Innovate UK competition brief . We cannot guarantee other government or third party sites will always show the correct competition information. The project must be independently selected by both Innovate UK and Innosuisse to be eligible for funding. Project size Your UK project’s total grant funding request must be no greater than £450,000. Accessibility and Inclusion We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and are committed to making our application process accessible to everyone. This includes making reasonable adjustments for people who have a disability or a long term condition and face barriers applying to us. You can contact us at any time to ask for guidance. We recommend you contact us at least 15 working days before this competition’s closing date to allow us to put the most suitable support in place. The support we can provide may be limited if you contact us close to the competition deadline. You can contact Innovate UK by email or call 0300 321 4357. Our phone lines are open from 9am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm UK time, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).