Funding and support

Does your business have a new idea or customer need you need to fulfil? Maybe you are considering collaborating with others or developing a new product? Quite simply you want to stay competitive, increase your profits and add value to your business and your customers? A range of funding and support is available to help your business to innovate.

One of the best places to start, is Business Link Yorkshire—the region’s one-stop-shop for business information.

Innovation Vouchers - Important Update

Please note that due to recent budget driven funding cuts Business Link are unable to accept any further Innovation Voucher applications.

If you wish to be added to our mailing list to receive information about any future opportunities to apply for Innovation Vouchers, should they become available, please email your company name and contact details to innovation@businesslinkyorkshire.co.uk.

Designing Demand

A national programme created by the Design Council to encourage businesses to use design as a tool for innovation. By working with expert Design Associates, businesses will be provided with specialist support on a design project, helping them create increased profitability and sustained competitiveness.

For further information please visit www.//yf.designingdemand.org.uk

Need a R&D grant?

Yorkshire Forward administers R&D grants funded by the UK government and the European Commission, available to individuals, SMEs and large companies. There is the national Grants for Research and Development (GRD) scheme, directed at SMEs, and the Yorkshire Forward Industrial R&D Awards for large companies.

Additionally, the Technology Strategy Board is investing £50m of matched funding in UK manufacturing to help companies develop vital new research and development projects to help maintain and grow their international competitiveness.

Finally, the European Enterprise Network can provide information and support tohelp local organisations access funding through the European Framework Programme (FP7).

Collaborating with a university?

If you’re collaborating with a university, you may able to apply (together with the university) for a Collaborative Research and Development Grant, awarded by the Technology Strategy Board. Then there’s the European Commission’s Framework Programme 7 (FP7), which funds collaborative research and development. There are also other ways to fund working with higher education institutions. For example, some of the centres of Industrial Collaboration, have established knowledge transfer partnerships (KTPs) with client companies, which provide part-funding for the research project through a government grant. The CICs have also been able to obtain the support of the Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS), which subsidises the cost of their consultancy time on a project with industry.

Want to take academic work to market?

If you’re working in a university, and want to turn your research into a business, please visit our funding for enterprise page.

Contact

If you’d like to find out more about these issues, speak to a member of the Yorkshire Forward access to finance team:

John Millar
R&D Manger
(john.millar@yorkshire-forward.com)

If the contact you're looking for isn’t listed here, please visit our main contact page.

The Advanced Engineering Materials Innovation Fund – Important Update

The AEM Innovation Fund has been extended until the end of September 2011, in order to support companies in Yorkshire and Humber to undertake short term, high impact research and development (R&D) projects that lead to new jobs and increased profits in the sector.

A further £100,000 has been approved to help fund projects, which must be completed by the new deadline, and is open to small and large companies in the AEM sector. The fund will provide up to 75% of the costs of total project costs for collaborative R&D projects, up to the value of £15,000.

Please contact Richard Smith on 01709 722 464 or email aeminnovation@namtec.co.uk for more information and to apply to the fund.