Growth Cohorts: Next-gen low carbon concrete cohort entry Round 2

Description Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), will invest up to £11.5 million to create a cohort of ambitious businesses, across a two stage competition, to accelerate concrete decarbonisation. This is subject to a sufficient number of high quality applications being received. The aim of this competition is to recruit ambitious businesses to join a Growth Cohort. The Growth Cohort will fund and support businesses to accelerate their ambitions to decarbonise concrete. The Growth Cohort will work collectively with industry to help remove barriers to adoption, ultimately aiming for a greater number of innovative solutions to secure investment and scale to market. Your proposal must clearly articulate: • your value proposition • your current commercial and investment traction • your team capabilities • your expected go to market strategy • what is required to accelerate your growth journey • how this programme could support you and what it will enable your business to achieve This is stage 1 of a potential 2 stage competition to join a Growth Cohort of ambitious businesses innovating to decarbonise concrete. Businesses in the Growth Cohort will, in stage 1, access funding and sector specific support to develop, and deliver, in stage 2, ambitious, executable innovation and growth plans. The first stage of the competition will select which companies will join the Growth Cohort. The output of this first stage will be a co-created, tailored funding and support package aligned to the growth plan, which would form the basis of a proposal for the second stage. For the first stage of this competition your grant funding request must be exactly £54,400. This includes £50,000 grant funding you can claim against eligible costs and £4,400 of in-kind non-claimable support from Innovate UK Business Connect. You must apply for the full £54,400, but do not need to claim the full grant funding amount if you do not need to. You must apply with a project duration of 6 months, which can end earlier with agreement from your Cohort Manager if required. Successful applicants will be assigned a Cohort Manager who will support the development of the innovation and growth plan, including: • identification of gaps • agreement of support needs and growth targets • use of the available MFA grant Participation in the Growth Cohort will require an investment of time and resource. Successful applicants are expected to engage with cohort support activities, including for example: • peer to peer networking • investor engagement • international market exploration This list is not intended to be exhaustive. A senior decision maker from the applicant business must commit to being involved in all stages of the programme. Successful applicants in this first stage competition, will be able to apply for further Innovate UK funding and support in the second stage. They must fulfil the conditions of the cohort entry stage gates to qualify for further funding. Applicants must be successful at stage 1 to be eligible to apply to stage 2. • Growth cohorts: Next generation low carbon concrete cohort entry (this stage 1) • Growth cohorts: Next generation low carbon concrete full stage (stage 2, invite only) There will be up to 5 Rounds of this entry competition (stage 1) between April 2026 and January 2028. This is Round 2. The full stage, stage 2, competition is expected to open in February 2027 and remain open until December 2028. Applications will be assessed and notified of the outcome at specific dates during the competition open period. Up to £11.5 million will be awarded in grants across both stages of the competition. We reserve the right to close the competition ahead of the final submission deadline once this grant funding has been fully allocated to successful applicants. Applicants are encouraged to apply into the earliest suitable round to avoid disappointment. 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 20% 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 correc

Who can apply Your project Your project must: • have a grant funding request of £54,400 • last for six months • start by 1 June 2027 • end by 30 November 2027 • upload a video in response to the video pitch question in your application 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. You must take part in all support activities based on identified need and as agreed with Innovate UK. Successful applicants to this Innovate UK competition must actively engage with the programme including in-person attendance and participation in cohort support activities. A senior decision maker from the applicant business must commit to being involved in all stages of the programme. Failure to attend or participate appropriately in cohort activities will lead to suspension and even termination of cohort membership. 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 . Successful applicants will be able to claim up to £50,000 of grant towards eligible costs incurred. You will be made ineligible if you exceed the Minimal Financial Assistance limit. You must submit a complete declaration as part of your application. Lead organisation To work alone your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size. This competition is open to single applicants only. More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules . 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 also provide a detailed rationale, evidence of the potential UK contractors you approached and the reasons why they were unable to work with you. We expect all subcontractor costs to be justified and appropriate to the total eligible project costs. We will not accept a cheaper cost as a sufficient reason to use an overseas subcontractor. Number of applications A business of any size can only apply and receive funding once in this first stage competition. 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, partner or subcontractor related to these countries, administrations and terrorist groups . Use of animals in research and innovation Innovate UK expects and supports the provision and safeguarding of welfare standards for animals used in research and innovation, according to best practice and up to date guidance. Applicants must ensure that all of the proposed work within projects, both in the UK and internationally, will comply with the UKRI guidance on the use of animals in research and innovation . Any projects selected for funding which involve animals will be asked to provide additional information on welfare and ethical considerations, as well as compliance with any relevant legislation as part of the project start-up process. This information will be reviewed before an award is made. Previous applications You can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition. If you have previously submitted an application that reached our assessment stage, you can resubmit a revised application into a future round. Only one resubmission is permitted per application. If there are minor differences to the proposal, but it is judged by us to be ‘not materially different’, the same rule applies. We will not award you funding if you have: • failed to exploit a previously funded project • an overdue independent accountant’s report • failed to comply with grant terms and conditions Innovate UK may withhold a grant payment at any time if you have any outstanding sums due to Innovate UK in relation to other projects. Minimal Financial Assistance (and de minimis where applicable) Grant funding in this competition is awarded as Minimal Financial assistance (MFA). This allows public bodies to award up to £315,000 to an enterprise in a 3-year rolling financial period. In your application, you will be asked to declare previous funding received by you. This will form part of the financial checks ahead of Innovate UK making a formal grant offer. To establish your eligibility, we need to check that our suppo

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 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: • Project details. • Application questions. • Finances. • 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. This competition requires a video submission. If you are unable to submit a video, this must be agreed in advance as a reasonable adjustment. Without prior agreement, your application will be made ineligible. If you feel you will face challenges in completing a video submission, please contact us at support@iuk.ukri.org to discuss. We recommend you contact us as soon as possible so we can provide appropriate support. 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 people from your organisation will work with you on the project and invite those people to help complete the application. Application details Give your project’s title, start date and duration. Project summary Describe your project briefly and be clear about what makes it innovative. We use this section to assign 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 wil