INNOVATE GRANTS - A HIGH LEVEL GUIDE 

Innovate grants, such as SMART and the BioMedical Catalyst (BMC), are a great way to provide non-dilutive funding for technology-based start-ups and SME’s. The success rate is low, however. We at Maru Scientific have been successfully (and sometimes unsuccessfully) submitting grant applications for over 25 years so here are a few tips to maximise your chances. 

BMC

The BMC grant is a little different in there are a couple of options – Feasibility Studies or Industry led-R&D. The BMC is an open call but there are specific themes prioritised by Innovate – there is a list of these on the grant website. The Industry Led R&D call is similar in many respects to SMART and is probably your best bet.

Like SMART the project must be led by a micro, small or medium sized enterprise (SME) and the consortium can include Universities, large industry, other SME’s, RTO’s, charities etc.

• Projects must last between 6 and 36 months and have total project costs between £150k and £4m.

• At least 50% of project costs shared by SME’s.

• A total grant request of £2m.

With the BMC, if you have requested a grant exceeding £500k then you may be invited to attend an interview. You’ll be invited to present your grant proposal to a panel of experts and be questioned on every aspect of it. Innovate will send you biographies of the panel prior to the meeting.

There are additional questions to answer on a BMC application compared to SMART. The first section is the same but there are three non-scored questions regarding animal testing, clinical trials and permits and licenses at the start. 

There is a greater focus in intellectual property in the question regarding impact outside the project team. The trickiest part is proving you have freedom to operate (FTO) – i.e. you can exploit the project without infringing anyone else’s IP. 

Then move on to the other questions. As with SMART there is a hard 400 word limit on each question. 

There are also Project Summary and Public Description Sections to add before getting into the body of the application. These are capped at 400 words each but are not marked so they’re best left until the end.