Member Article

Drug discovery and electric charging innovators receive share of £15m Innovate UK pot

Innovate UK has revealed the latest selection of projects and businesses to receive a share of its multi-million pound tech and science innovation pot.

The £15m funding boost has been spread across 50 projects involving 75 partners stretching across technology, science, engineering and industrial sectors, as part of the innovation body’s open competition for innovative ideas and projects with market potential.

Each of the 50 successful projects will receive funding from between £25,000 and £1m over the next 36 months to support the development of their projects and products, and their market viability.

Recipients of a share of this latest funding including Biodice, a company which is developing a new kind of internal combustion engine that it claims can significantly lower fuel consumption, emissions and costs, with a particular eye on the UK’s public transport.

Others who have received a cash boost include Petalite Limited, who have been given an undisclosed amount for their technology platform aimed at speeding up electric vehicle charging, and OMass Technologies, a medical tech firm working on more effective methods to assess and monitor protein membranes to fuel drug discovery efforts.

Fionnuala Costello, Head of Open Programmes at Innovate UK, hailed the wide spectrum of projects that have been awarded a share of the funding, and said that submissions for the agency’s next competition were already open.

She said: “I am very pleased that we have been able to fund such a wide range of innovative projects with great potential for return on investment for companies across the UK and across our major sectors.

“Moving forward, our next £15 million funding competition is now open for applications which have the similar potential to generate commercial impact and economic growth.”

The full list of recipients to be awarded funding in the latest competition can be found here.