Advancing innovation in accelerated cancer diagnosis

Description Innovate UK, on behalf of the Office for Life Sciences’ (OLS) Cancer Healthcare Goals programme, will invest up to £25.4 million in innovative CR&D projects. This funding will be to support the clinical validation and evaluation of early cancer diagnostic technologies and devices. This is subject to a sufficient number of high quality applications being received. Projects addressing the needs of those with less common cancers are particularly encouraged. Less common cancers are defined as any cancer type outside of breast, prostate, lung, and bowel cancer. Less common cancers can include rare forms of these four cancer types. The aim of this competition is to accelerate the development of diagnostic innovations that enable the earlier detection and diagnosis of cancer, particularly less common cancers. Your project must focus on developing, validating or evaluating diagnostic technologies or approaches that demonstrate clear potential for clinical and health economic impact. Projects can generate robust evidence to support regulatory approval and future NHS adoption. 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 a 15% 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. Project size Your project’s total eligible costs must be between £1.5 million and £4 million. 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). The aim of this competition is to accelerate the development of diagnostic innovations that enable the earlier detection and diagnosis of cancer, particularly less common cancers. Your project must focus on developing, validating or evaluating diagnostic technologies or approaches that demonstrate clear potential for clinical and health economic impact. Projects can generate robust evidence to support regulatory approval and future NHS adoption. Your project can include clinical validation and evaluation studies, early phase clinical trials, safety and efficacy testing, technology demonstration in relevant and operational environments, regulatory planning and product development activities. Projects focusing on less common cancers are particularly encouraged for this competition, which includes any cancer that is not breast, prostate, lung or bowel cancer. Less common cancers can include rare forms of these four cancer types. Portfolio approach We want to fund a variety of projects across a range of different cancer types, geographies, and technological maturities. We call this a portfolio approach . Specific themes Your project can focus on one or more of the following: Next generation diagnostic technologies and devices : to drive earlier diagnosis of cancer, including less common cancers Novel technologies and devices which can improve patient access to diagnostic services, either by : • empowering patients and primary care teams to identify more people with early symptoms • enabling patients to receive an earlier diagnosis • reducing strain on services including but not limited to self-assessment tools, pharmacy led triage and direct to test pathways Harnessing multi-modal approaches : to assess an individual’s cancer risk by considering multiple factors including genomic, demographic, imaging and biomarkers, as well as multianalyte combinations. This list is not intended to be exhaus

Text update October 14th 2026: We have updated the guidance in the number of applications section regarding multiple applications from the same organisation. Your project Your project must: • have total project costs of between £1.5 million and £4 million • last between 24 and 36 months • start by 1 April 2027 • end by 31 March 2030 Any organisation receiving funding must carry out its project work in the UK, intend to exploit the results in the UK, and spend most of the funding within the UK. Projects must always start on the first of the month, even if this is a non-working day. You must not start your project until your Grant Offer Letter has been approved by Innovate UK. Any delays within Project Setup may mean we need to delay your project start date. You must only include eligible project costs in your application. See our overview of eligible project costs . Lead organisation To lead a collaborative project your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size, an academic institution or an NHS organisation. The consortium must contain at least one UK registered micro, small or medium sized enterprise  (SME) claiming grant funding on this application. The consortium must also include a practising clinician, or clinical academic, or involve a clinical delivery team as a minimum. More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules . Academic institutions cannot work alone. Community Interest Companies (CICs) and charities are not allowed to lead in this competition. Project team To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered: • business of any size • academic institution • public sector organisation • charity • not for profit • research and technology organisation (RTO) Note: Public sector organisations include NHS or National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) organisations. For example, a Health Innovation Network (HIN) or HealthTech Research Centres or equivalent in the devolved administrations. For this competition, the collaboration must include a practising clinician or clinical academic or involve a clinical delivery team as a minimum. Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service (IFS) by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once partners have accepted the invitation, they will be asked to login or to create an account in IFS. They are responsible for entering their own project costs and completing their Project Impact questions in the application. To be an eligible collaboration: • the lead and at least one other organisation must request funding • you must explain why you’re collaborating and how the collaboration will work • no single organisation can claim more than 70% of the total project 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. Where non-funded partners have been invited to the application on IFS, their costs will count towards the total eligible project costs. Subcontractors Subcontractors are allowed in this competition. Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK and you must select them through your usual procurement process. You can use subcontractors from overseas but must make the case in your application as to why you cannot use subcontractors from the UK. You must provide a detailed rationale, evidence of the potential UK 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 an overseas subcontractor. 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. For the avoidance of doubt the first application submitted will be accepted and any subsequent applications from the same organisation will be marked as ineligible. An eligible organisation that is leading an application can be included as a collaborator in two further applications. Businesses, academic institutions and public sector organisations who are not leading an application can collaborate on any number of applications. Charities and not for profit organisations can collaborate on any number of applications. 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

Text update 15 September 2026: additional bullet added regarding the spend profile in the Interview guidance section. Before you start You must read the  guidance on applying for a competition on the Innovation Funding Service before you start. Before submitting, it is the lead applicant’s responsibility to make sure: • that all the information provided in the application is correct • your proposal meets the eligibility and scope criteria • all sections of the application are marked as complete • that all partners have completed all assigned sections and accepted the terms and conditions (T&Cs) You can reopen your application once submitted, up until the competition deadline. You must resubmit the application before the competition deadline. What we ask you The application is split into four sections: 1. Project details. 2. Application questions. 3. Finances. 4. Project Impact. 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). 1. Project details This section provides background for your application and is not scored. Do not include any website addresses (URLs) in your answers. Application team Decide which organisations will work with you on your project and invite people from those organisations to help complete the application. Application details Give your project’s title, start date and duration. Research category Select the type of research you will undertake. Project summary Describe your project briefly and be clear about what makes it innovative. We use this section to assign the right experts to assess your application. Your answer can be up to 400 words long. Public description Describe your project in detail and in a way that you are happy to see published. Do not include any commercially sensitive information. If we award your project funding, we will publish this description. This can happen before you start your project. Your answer can be up to 400 words long. Scope Describe how your project fits the scope of the competition. If your project is not in scope, it will not be sent for assessment. We will tell you the reason why. Your answer can be up to 400 words long. 2. Application questions The assessors will score all your answers apart from questions 1 to 6. You will receive feedback for each scored question. Find out m