UK grant · Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)
UK-Netherlands Co-Innovation for Quantum Technology 2026
£250,000 to £400,000 Closes 9 February 2027
Official listing and how to apply
Source: Find a Grant (GOV.UK) · Last checked
Key facts
| Funder | Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) |
|---|---|
| Amount per award | £250,000 to £400,000 |
| Total funding available | £1,500,000 |
| Opens | 3 November 2026 |
| Closes | 9 February 2027 (91 days left) |
| Who can apply | Businesses, Public sector and councils, Charities and non-profits |
| Applicant types listed | Non-profit; Private Sector; Local authority |
| Nation or region | National |
| Status | Open |
| Source | Find a Grant (GOV.UK) |
| Last checked | 10 November 2026 |
About this grant
Summary from the official listing on Find a Grant (GOV.UK):
Description
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), will invest up to £1.5 million from the UKRI. This is subject to a sufficient number of high quality applications being received.
The aim of this competition is to strengthen collaborative research and development towards commercialising quantum technologies, through Netherlands and UK partnerships.
Your proposal must plausibly demonstrate co-innovation, high potential for commercialisation and address a technological challenge and global market exploitation plan.
UK registered businesses must collaborate with at least one Netherlands based non-linked registered business applying under the equivalent Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) programme.
UK registered organisations must apply through the Innovation Funding Service (IFS) portal to Innovate UK.
Your Netherlands based partner will not receive any funding from Innovate UK.
Netherlands based partners must apply to, and will be funded by, Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) programme component of the project set out in this application.
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 33% 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.
The project must be independently selected by both Innovate UK and Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) programme to be eligible to be awarded funding.
Funding type
Grant
Project size
UK partners grant funding request can be between £250,000 and £400,000 per project.
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).
This competition is open during the Christmas holiday period. However, UKRI and Innovate UK will have limited capacity to respond to queries.
We will not respond to queries between 23 December 2026 and 4 January 2027. Responses may also be delayed after 18 December…
Eligibility
Who can apply
Your project
Your project must:
- have a grant funding request of between £250,000 and £400,000
- last between 18 and 24 months
- not start before 1 June 2027
- end by 30 May 2029
The majority of the project work must be undertaken in the UK and Netherlands. UK project partners must carry out the majority of their project work in the UK and intend to exploit the results from or in the UK and spend most of the funding within the UK.
The consortium must include at least one business registered in Netherlands that is a separate legal entity and not linked to the UK partners. This is to ensure that projects encourage genuine international collaboration, not internal company research. Linked companies are considered a single entity under the parent company.
Your project must demonstrate a balanced technological contribution by the participants from both countries and must be equally significant to all participants.
No one country or project partner can represent more than 70% of the total project cost.
Your proposal must demonstrate a clear intention to commercially exploit the results of the project domestically or globally.
You must only include eligible project costs in your application. See our overview of eligible project costs.
Roles and terminology
There must be a ‘project lead’ and this can be either an eligible UK or Netherlands based organisation. The project lead is responsible for managing the entire project.
The ‘lead applicant’, is the organisation that starts the application on the Innovation Funding Service. This must be a UK organisation.
UK lead organisation
To start an application on the Innovation Funding Service (IFS), your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size.
You must collaborate with at least one Netherlands registered for-profit business applying to the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) programme which must be a separate legal entity, not linked to the UK partners.
Netherlands based organisations can be a project lead but cannot start an application on IFS.
More information on the different types of UK organisations can be found in our Funding rules.
UK Project team
To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:
- business of any size
- academic institution
- charity
- not for profit
- public sector organisation
- research and technology organisation (RTO)
Only UK registered partners must be listed in the Project Partner section of your application on the
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