Funding Opportunities

Availability: Will open for applications again in September 2025.

Closing Date: November 2025.

Value: Up to £350,000 per application

Duration: BHF will aim to reach a decision on your application in August 2025.

Eligibility:

The lead applicant or investigator must be employed by an NHS organisation or UK academic institution.

Applications are invited from teams who have been identified and supported by UK’s regional innovation boards, like:

Health Innovation Networks (HINs) in England
Innovation Hubs in Scotland
Cardiac Network Board in Wales
Cardiology Network in Northern Ireland.

Your project can include working with other partners, such as the third sector and industry, where you think it will benefit people with cardiovascular disease.
It’s important that your project considers patient involvement at all levels, from scoping to steering groups.

Summary:

We want to support everyone with cardiovascular disease to live a longer healthier life, by ensuring they get the treatment, care and support they need. That’s why we want to work with you to develop pioneering ways to transform the delivery of services. By funding the most innovative ideas, we can work together to make the biggest impact. Our Healthcare Innovation Fund tests and evaluates innovative approaches to the delivery of improved services for people with cardiovascular disease.

We fund ideas that:

Identify an unmet need that needs further scoping and consensus building around need and potential solutions.
Have been scoped by an appropriate group of stakeholders and are ready to be tested and evaluated in practice.
Have been tested locally by an appropriate group of stakeholders and are ready for early stage scaling.

Applications closed on Monday 28th April 2025 at midday.

We will open again for applications in September 2025 (closing in November 2025). Application rounds for 2026 and 2027 will be announced in due course.

Availability: OPEN

Closing Date: Not specified.

Value: £50,000 – £150,000

Duration: 6-12 month period

Eligibility: Technologies which have regulatory approval or demonstrated equivalent safety and efficacy

Summary:

The NIHR Invention for Innovation (i4i) Programme is a translational research funding scheme aimed at medical devices, in vitro diagnostic devices and digital health technologies addressing an existing or emerging health or social care need.

i4i is now open to the whole UK

We’re excited to announce that the NIHR i4i programme is now accepting applications from researchers and organisations based in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, in addition to applications from England. This change will be effective for our upcoming i4i competitions in autumn 2023, including PDA Call 27, Challenge Call 16, and Connect Call 8. We are looking forward to receiving applications from across the UK.

Location: UK

Availability: Open

Closing Date: Not specified

Value: £25,000 of initial funding

Duration: Not specified

Eligibility: NHS staff

Summary:

InnoScot Health is seeking forward-thinking ophthalmic solutions that can help support NHS Scotland to strengthen and make meaningful change in this priority area of its recovery plan. During the pandemic, this was one of the health care areas which suffered most as patients were unable to see ophthalmologists and optometrists for face-to-face appointments so waiting lists and backlogs grew.

This in turn meant that individuals with eye problems saw a worsening of their condition over the course of the pandemic and it is only now that we are beginning to see a return to normal practice. However, there remains a significant accumulation of people still requiring treatment and so encouraging the diverse NHS Scotland workforce to come up with new ways of working and identifying ways to reduce that backlog is vital.

Submitting your idea is a simple process – taking approximately 5-10 minutes – and all are confidential.

Location: Scotland

Availability: Open

Closing Date: Not specified

Value: Up to £25,000 of initial funding

Duration: up to 4 months.

Eligibility: NHS Scotland staff

Summary:

InnoScot Health is seeking sustainable, forward-thinking ideas from health and social care professionals that can help support NHS Scotland to adapt, develop and strengthen in response to climate change.

Encouraging NHS Scotland’s diverse workforce to come up with new ideas that achieve sustainable outcomes is vital, and is at the heart of the latest InnoScot Health innovation call.

The behaviours of NHS Scotland’s 160,000-strong workforce will influence how the service mitigates and adapts to climate change impacts; and so, encouraging this diverse workforce to come up with new ways of working is vital.

The package of support for health and social care staff with ideas to support NHS Scotland includes £25,000 of initial funding, regulatory support, project management and the innovation expertise of InnoScot Health.

Location: Scotland

Availability: Ongoing

Closing Date: None – apply at any time

Value: A typical KTP project delivers a package of support valued at around £80,000 to £100,000 per year.

Duration: 12-36 months

Eligibility: Aimed at partnerships between a UK-based business of any size or non-profit organisation, an academic organisation and a suitably-qualified graduate.

Summary:

Since 1975, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) have been helping businesses and organisations innovate for growth. They are unique collaborative partnerships between businesses and universities, colleges, research organisations and Catapults. KTPs create positive impact and drive innovation.

There are different types of KTPs, each addressing a specific need:

classic KTPs: help build better products and services
management KTPs: help build better businesses
third sector and charity KTPs: help create more robust income streams
public sector management KTPs: help UK’s public services to innovate and improve their services

Each KTP addresses a specific challenge and enables the transfer of knowledge, technology, and expertise from the academic partner to the business or organisation. Funded by Innovate UK and the partner business or organisation, the program provides support for a partnership, including the placement of a highly qualified graduate, known as a KTP Associate, within the business for a period of 12-36 months.

The KTP Associate works with the business to implement innovative solutions to identified business challenges, using the knowledge and expertise gained through their academic training. The academic partner provides support and guidance to the KTP Associate throughout the project. The business benefits from the transfer of knowledge and expertise, as well as access to new technologies, specialist facilities and technical expertise. KTPs have been shown to be highly effective in driving innovation and growth and are a valuable tool for businesses and organisations seeking to stay ahead of the curve in today’s rapidly changing economic landscape.

Location: UK

Availability: Applications for the 2026 intake will open in Summer 2025.

Closing Date: Not Specified

Value: Not Specified

Duration: Not Specified

Eligibility: The NIA is open to applicants from any background, including SMEs, clinical entrepreneurs and academia, with innovations of any type that solve a problem for the NHS

Summary:

To be successful, your innovation should be:

• In use in at least one site, in the NHS or elsewhere
• Supported by an evidence base and able to demonstrate better patient and/or staff outcomes
• Ready to spread across the NHS
• Led by an applicant who is open to learning and sharing insights
• Aligned with one of the 2023 call themes (to be confirmed)

Location: Not Specified

Availability: Open

Closing Date: Not Specified

Value: Between £1,000 and £5,000

Duration: Not Specified

Eligibility:

Applications from all company sectors are welcome. However, vouchers are only available to SMEs, sole traders, social enterprises and third sector organisations with main business operations in Scotland, working with Scottish Universities or Scottish Further Education Colleges.

Summary:

There are two types of Standard Innovation Vouchers:

Product/Process/Service Innovation Voucher – to support outward innovation to develop a new product, process or service.
Workforce Innovation Voucher – to support inward innovation to develop the company’s internal workforce such as new or enhanced workplace processes, innovative workplace practices and innovative business expertise. This does not include staff CPD or to finance any external training courses.

Location: Scotland

Availability: Open

Closing Date: N/A

Value: Up to £20, 000 towards Higher Education Institutes (HEI) costs

Duration: Less than a year

Eligibility: The projects must be led by at least one of Scotland’s talented Higher Education Institutes (HEI).

Summary:

The Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre (IBioIC) invites applications for proof-of-concept projects from researchers with an ambition to spin-out a company within 1-2 years of the project ending.

Spin-out projects should focus on innovative applications of biotechnology and address a real market need or commercial opportunity.

This call invites applications from academic researchers addressing challenges that could be addressed with a biotechnology solution with the near-term ambition of forming a spin-out or start-up company.

Location: United Kingdom

Availability: From Autumn 2023

Closing Date: Various (depending on programme)

Value: Various (depending on programme)

Duration: Various (depending on programme)

Eligibility: Researchers and in some cases SMEs (depending on programme)

Summary:

From autumn 2023, health and social care researchers in the devolved administrations will have increased access to health and social care research funding via the National Institute for Health and Care Research. This expands the list of NIHR research programmes that are available to researchers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Researchers and in some cases SMEs will be able to access the following NIHR research programmes from autumn 2023:

Location: Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland

Availability: Open

Closing Date: All year round

Value: Up to £100,000

Duration: 6 – 18 Months

Eligibility: Small or medium sized business, university spin-out or an individual based in Scotland

Summary:

The SMART: SCOTLAND grant is one of our research and development (R&D) grants that aims to support high-risk, highly ambitious projects.

It covers conducting feasibility studies. It’s only available to small and medium enterprises (SMEs)* based in Scotland and supports activities that have a commercial endpoint.

Location: Scotland

Availability: Open

Closing Date: N/A

Value: Up to £75,000

Duration: Scottish Enterprise will aim to reach a decision on your application within 3 weeks of submission.

Eligibility: This call is open to all universities, research institutes and NHS boards in areas of Scotland served by Scottish Enterprise. This includes Aberdeen City and Shire, the east of Scotland, Tayside and the west of Scotland.

Summary:

The High-Growth Spinout Programme (HGSP) provides funding to support the commercialisation of advanced technologies developed at Scotland’s universities, research institutes and NHS boards. The objective is to create new high-growth companies with the potential to generate significant economic impact in Scotland.

The purpose of the funding is to address gaps in the business plan for the prospective technology. The grant can support up to 100% of the direct costs of a project, up to a maximum of £75,000.

Supported activities include, but are not limited to:

the appointment of an experienced commercial champion to lead and manage commercial engagement
technology de-risking through prototyping
investor engagement
market research
regulatory assessment
intellectual property strategy development

You are encouraged to speak to a member of the HGSP team before you draft and submit your application.

Available Funding Opportunities

BHF Healthcare Innovation Fund

Invention for Innovation

Opthalmic innovation call

InnoScot Health

Sustainability Innovation Call

InnoScot Health

Knowledge Transfer Partnership

UK Government

NHS Innovator Accelerator

The AHSN Network England

Standard Innovation Vouchers

Interface

Spin Out Support Programme

IBioIC

Further NIHR funding for Scottish Researchers

SMART:Scotland Grant

Scottish Enterprise

High-Growth Spinout Programme

NIHR