Women in Innovation Awards 2025/26
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), is offering up to 60 Women in Innovation Awards to women founders and co-founders of micro, small or medium sized enterprises (SMEs) across the UK.
Successful projects will receive up to £75,000 of grant funding and bespoke business support for 12 months.
A proportion of highly commended applicants who have not been awarded grant funding in this competition will be offered bespoke business support for 12 months.
The aims of this competition are to support Women in Innovation Award winners:
- whose innovation is aligned to one of the following three high growth sectors defined in the Government’s Industrial Strategy; Advanced Manufacturing, Digital and Technologies and Life Sciences
- who have a late stage start-up with ambitions to grow a scalable business which will involve raising considerable investment in the next 12 to 24 months
As a late stage start-up we would expect you to:
- have built a basic version of the idea or product, service, solution, for example a prototype or Minimal Viable Product
- have received early interest from users, customers, or made some money
- know who the product is for and have started testing how the business will work
- have an understanding of realistic market opportunity
- have started forming a team, going beyond original founders
This competition closes at 11 am on 4 February 2026.
Read more information about this competition and access the quick suitability checker to see if this award is right for you.