The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and Innovate UK are funding a Contracts for Innovation competition to help industry to identify the emissions saving potential of resource efficiency solutions.
Up to £3 million in funding is available to support organisations to deliver an impact validation report for promising resource efficiency solutions. This should be informed by a demonstration or trial, which may be carried out as part of the project or otherwise conducted within the last 5 years. Contracts for Innovation, previously known as Small Business Research Initiative awards, are not standard grants. Successful applicants will be awarded a contract by DESNZ and Innovate UK, which will cover 100% of the eligible costs of the project, up to £300,000 per project.
The resource efficiency solutions should address themes in one of the following sectors:
The competition opens on Monday, 14 July 2025 and covers applications from any size or type of organisation with a proposal that addresses resource efficiency opportunities within one of the target sectors.
The scope of the competition is designed to help accelerate resource efficiency opportunities identified in the DESNZ Unlocking Resource Efficiency research.
To find out more, please visit the competition page.
If you have any questions about the Contracts for Innovation competition or would like to discuss a potential application, please contact Innovate UK at support@iuk.ukri.org.
Contracts for Innovation stakeholder event
The Innovation webinar is on Wednesday, 16 July 2025 and will be an opportunity to:
To register for the webinar, please visit the registration site.
