Battery Innovation Concept Development Round 3: Up to £4 Million for UK Battery Manufacturing Innovation

Battery Innovation Concept Development Round 3: Up to £4 Million for UK Battery Manufacturing Innovation

Innovate UK’s Battery Innovation Concept Development Round 3 is open for collaborative industrial research projects that can strengthen battery manufacturing capability in the United Kingdom. The official UKRI opportunity page and its linked Innovation Funding Service brief list a closing date of 2 December 2026 at 11:00am UK time. The competition opened on 11 September 2026 and offers grants for concept-development projects that can move manufacturing innovations towards pilot or pre-commercial scale. This entry now covers the currently open Round 3 competition; Round 2 has closed.

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, runs the Battery Innovation Programme with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade. Round 3 is for battery cell manufacturing, module manufacturing, and pack manufacturing or battery management systems. It does not continue Round 2’s focus on extraction, refining, and recycling. Applicants should use the current brief to decide whether a proposal fits this manufacturing call.

Key details

The £25 million is the overall competition allocation, not a per-applicant award. Each project must request between £500,000 and £4 million in eligible grant funding. Grant funding does not necessarily cover all eligible costs: the organisation receiving a grant must finance the balance. Innovate UK may adjust allocations in exceptional circumstances, and the call is competitive, so meeting the eligibility rules does not guarantee an award.

What Round 3 supports

The call backs collaborative research and development in strategically important parts of the UK battery value chain. Its stated goal is to improve domestic cell manufacturing, module and pack production, battery systems, supply-chain security, and the UK’s ability to retain economic value from battery innovation. Proposals need to make a convincing case that their work will advance UK industrial capability and connect to a real market need.

The brief asks applicants to place their main innovation in one or more of three groups:

1. Cell manufacturing. Work may improve production efficiency, increase scale, reduce scrap or energy use, bring new chemistries or formats into production, advance electrode fabrication or cell assembly, improve testing and formation, automate production, or use digital tools and diagnostics to shorten development time. The competition encourages routes from laboratory work towards gigafactory-scale manufacturing.
2. Module manufacturing. Relevant work can improve cell-to-module interconnections, structural bonding, housing assembly, busbar configurations, cell positioning and joining, thermal-interface application, or end-of-line electrical testing and insulation monitoring.
3. Pack manufacturing and battery management systems. This includes pack design and assembly, structural systems, safety and fault detection, thermal management, battery-management functionality, state-of-charge or state-of-health algorithms, simulation, digital twins, data-led optimisation, and designs that support circularity or end-of-life handling.

Projects may include manufacturing improvements, dry-coating methods, testing systems, modular designs, joining methods, lightweight pack materials, or digital tools for experiment design. These are examples rather than a substitute for a clear project rationale. The proposal should identify its primary group, describe the technical bottleneck, state the expected performance or production improvement, and explain how the result can be scaled and used in the UK.

The target application may serve automotive, including off-highway vehicles and motorsport, aerospace, battery energy storage, rail, maritime, or defence. A defence proposal must have a dual-use innovation with clear relevance beyond defence. Applicants must show they understand the target industry and demand in the UK, Europe, and global markets. The brief also expects a credible UK value-add pathway, such as expanded manufacturing capacity, new production capability, stronger domestic supply chains, or long-term economic and environmental benefits.

Work outside the call’s scope

Round 3 is not an upstream battery-materials call. The official brief excludes projects focused on material extraction and refining. It also excludes personal mobility and consumer electronics, early-stage discovery research, and work primarily focused on battery second-life use. A proposal centred on mining, refining, or recycling should not be carried forward from an earlier battery call on the assumption that the scope is unchanged.

The programme funds industrial research. Projects should be beyond discovery work and should explain how the work advances a manufacturing process, module technology, pack or battery-management system, and how the project can progress towards pilot or pre-commercial manufacturing in the UK. A well-framed technical idea still needs an industrial route, an identified customer or market, and a realistic plan for adoption.

The brief also rules out subsidies dependent on export performance or on a fixed percentage of domestic inputs. The proposal may explain UK supply-chain advantages and intended markets, but grant support cannot be conditional on exporting a certain quantity or using a specified share of UK components.

Eligibility and consortium structure

The lead applicant must be a UK-registered business of any size. Academic institutions cannot lead. The collaboration must include the lead and at least one other organisation requesting funding, and the consortium must include at least one UK-registered micro, small, or medium-sized enterprise claiming grant funding. The lead must explain why the partners are working together and how the collaboration will operate. No single organisation may claim more than 70% of total project costs.

Eligible funded collaborators include UK-registered businesses, academic institutions, charities, not-for-profit organisations, public-sector organisations, and research and technology organisations. The lead invites each partner through the Innovation Funding Service. After accepting, partners use the service to provide their own project costs and organisation information. Non-funded partners may also take part; their costs are paid from their own resources. The brief permits non-UK non-funded collaborators to work in their home countries and exploit results outside the UK.

Funded organisations must carry out project work in the UK, intend to exploit the results in the UK, and spend most of the funding within the UK. Each project must last 12 to 36 months, must not start before 1 May 2027, and must finish by 31 March 2031. Projects must start on the first day of a month, and no project may begin until Innovate UK has approved its Grant Offer Letter. Project setup delays may require a later start.

A business may lead one application and collaborate on any number of other applications. Academic institutions, research and technology organisations, charities, not-for-profits, and public-sector organisations may collaborate on multiple applications. Subcontracting is allowed where costs are justified and appropriate. Overseas subcontractors require a detailed explanation and evidence that suitable UK contractors were approached and could not do the work; a lower price alone is not enough.

Grant rates and project finances

For commercial or economic activity, the maximum grant share of eligible industrial-research costs is 70% for micro or small organisations, 60% for medium-sized organisations, and 50% for large organisations. The remaining eligible costs must be met by the grant recipient. Research organisations carrying out non-economic activity can share up to 30% of total eligible project costs; within that share, academic institutions may receive up to 80% of full economic costs, while eligible RTOs, charities, not-for-profits, public-sector organisations, and research organisations may receive up to 100% of eligible costs under the stated rules.

Every partner enters its own costs, organisation details, and funding details in the application. Academic institutions use the Transparent Approach to Costing method and upload the supporting material required by the service. Budgets should be traceable to work packages and deliverables, make the balance of partner costs clear, and justify subcontractors. Higher requests receive proportionate scrutiny, so cost assumptions and value-for-money claims should be supported by evidence.

How to apply

Applications are made through the Innovation Funding Service. The application has project details, application questions, and finances. The lead is responsible for ensuring the information is accurate, the proposal meets scope and eligibility, every section is complete, and all partners have completed their sections and accepted the terms before submission.

A practical sequence is:

1. Check scope and choose the strand. Confirm that the central work fits cell manufacturing, module manufacturing, or pack manufacturing and battery management systems. This is the concept-development strand; applications cannot be transferred between the parallel feasibility and concept-development competitions, and out-of-scope applications are not assessed.
2. Form the team and set the project. Confirm the UK business lead, the grant-claiming partners, the participating SME, the work split, and the project duration and dates. Invite partners through the service and make sure they accept and enter their own information.
3. Complete the project details. Provide the project title, start date and duration, select the research category, and write a short project summary and public description. The scope response must state the primary technology group and show how the work fits the call.
4. Answer the technical and commercial questions. Explain the need or challenge, technical approach and innovation, team and facilities, target market, commercialisation roadmap, partner outcomes, project management, risks, and UK value. Applicants are also asked about applicant location, animal testing, permits and licences, international collaboration, export licences, trusted research, and previous funded-project context. The brief says URLs included in application answers will not be viewed or opened, so provide evidence in the requested form rather than relying on links.
5. Attach the requested supporting material. Question 9 allows an appendix of up to two A4 pages and 10MB; Question 10 permits a two-page team summary. Question 14 requires a project plan or Gantt chart of up to two A4 pages and 10MB. The value-for-money section includes a workbook and evidence requirements, including information supporting why public funding is needed. Follow the live form for each question’s appendix format and upload location.
6. Complete finances and review the whole application. Each funded partner fills out its costs and funding details. Check the grant percentages, total request, partner cost balance, work-package totals, eligibility, and all required documents. Ensure the service marks all parts complete and all partners accept the terms.
7. Submit by the deadline. The competition closes at 11:00am UK time on 2 December 2026. A submitted application can be reopened before closing, but it must be resubmitted before the deadline to count.

The application asks applicants to identify the current state of the art, explain how the proposed innovation improves on it, describe technology and manufacturing maturity at project start and end, and state measurable battery-performance or manufacturing metrics. Market answers should cover customer segments, market structure, value chains, growth expectations, barriers to entry, and the UK’s current position. Commercialisation answers should explain the business model, route to market, investment required, risks addressed, UK scale-up plan, and outcomes for each partner.

The project-management response should set out work packages, their leads, costs, deliverables, dependencies, reporting lines, and milestones. The risk response should cover technical, commercial, managerial, environmental, and regulatory risks, along with the resources or data critical to delivery. The value-for-money answers ask what public support changes, what would happen without it, how partner contributions will be financed, and what wider effects may follow for customers, suppliers, the battery sector, and the UK economy.

Published timetable

The official Innovation Funding Service schedule states that the competition opened on 11 September 2026 and closes on 2 December 2026 at 11:00am. The schedule lists invitations to interview on 13 January 2027, the interview panel starting on 3 February 2027, applicant notifications on 12 February 2027, and project starts from 1 May 2027. The interview guidance gives an interview window of 3 to 8 February 2027. These are dates for Round 3 as published in the current competition brief and are subject to the instructions sent to applicants.

Questions applicants often ask

Is this still the materials extraction and recycling competition?

No. That described Round 2. Round 3 focuses on cell manufacturing, module manufacturing, and pack manufacturing or battery management systems, and the current brief excludes material extraction and refining. Applicants should base their scope decisions on the Round 3 documents.

How much can one project request?

The total eligible grant request must be between £500,000 and £4 million. Up to £25 million is allocated across the competition as a whole, subject to the quality and number of applications.

Can a university lead the application?

No. The lead must be a UK-registered business. A university can collaborate if it meets the project-team rules, and academic partners should follow the stated funding and costing requirements.

Can a business apply by itself?

No. The competition is collaborative. The lead and at least one other organisation must request funding, the team must explain the collaboration, and at least one UK-registered SME must claim grant funding. No one organisation can claim more than 70% of total project costs.

When can a funded project begin?

A project cannot start before 1 May 2027 and must end by 31 March 2031. It must last 12 to 36 months and start on the first day of a month. Work cannot begin before the Grant Offer Letter is approved.

What makes a strong fit?

A strong fit connects a defined manufacturing problem to a technical solution, clear performance measures, a capable consortium, a target market, and a credible path from project work to UK industrial deployment. The proposal should describe the UK benefit in concrete terms, such as improved production capability, stronger supply resilience, or new domestic manufacturing activity.

Where is the official application information?

Use the UKRI opportunity listing for the public summary and the Innovation Funding Service brief for the detailed rules, questions, dates, and application route. Check both before submitting in case the funder updates the live guidance.