Grants and Support for SMEs Autumn 2021

We have some good news on grants and support for SMEs from national and regional bodies.

Circular economy for SMEs – innovating with the NICER programme

A new government grant has opened for UK registered businesses to apply for a share of up to £1 million to research, test and develop step-change circular economy approaches.

Under the scheme, a project must demonstrate how it will create a step-change in the adoption of circular economy approaches.

The broad spectrum of circular economy approaches will be in scope, for example:

✔️ repair

✔️ reuse

✔️ remanufacture

✔️ recycle

✔️ regeneration

Project’s total eligible costs: £50,000 to £100,000.
Project length: between nine and 12 months
Deadline: Wednesday 8 December 2021 11:00am

Innovate UK smart grants: October 202

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, is investing up to £25 million in the best game-changing and commercially viable innovative or disruptive ideas. All proposals must be business-focused. Applications can come from any area of technology and be applied to any part of the economy, such as, but not exclusively:

✔️ the arts, design and media

✔️ creative industries

✔️ science or engineering

Project’s total eligible costs: £100,000 to £500,000.
Project length: between six and 18 months
Deadline: 5 January 2022 11:00am

How we can help

We work with several providers, including Swoop Finance to deliver these to SME clients. We deal with the business plan and use of funds, and our partners help with the admin of the application, which we review. Our success rate is nicely above national averages.