Growth Cohorts: Next generation low carbon concrete cohort entry

Growth Cohorts: Next generation low carbon concrete cohort entry

This is a historical reference for the first-stage entry competition run by Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). The official UKRI page now marks the opportunity Closed. The round opened on 20 April 2026 and closed on 8 July 2026 at 11:00am UK time. The deadline remains in the front matter because it is the real date for the archived cycle; it must not be read as an active deadline.

The official Innovation Funding Service brief describes a programme with up to five stage-one entry rounds between April 2026 and January 2028, and says the full stage-two competition is expected to open in February 2027 and remain open until December 2028. Those are programme-level plans in the brief, not a newly announced stage-one deadline for this page. No replacement stage-one date is published on the official record checked for this update. Anyone looking for a live application route should use the UKRI opportunity page and the Innovation Funding Service to confirm that a later round has actually opened before preparing an application.

Key details

What the competition was designed to fund

The entry round was not a general construction grant and was not intended to fund an isolated laboratory study. Innovate UK wanted ambitious businesses already working in, or building traction in, the sustainable concrete supply chain. The Growth Cohort was intended to work collectively with industry to remove barriers to adoption, helping innovative solutions secure investment and reach market scale.

Stage one offered a £50,000 grant to develop an executable innovation and growth plan. Successful applicants were to receive support from a Cohort Manager to identify gaps, agree support needs and growth targets, and decide how to use the available Minimal Financial Assistance grant. Participation also required time and resources for activities such as peer networking, investor engagement and international market exploration.

The output of stage one was intended to become the basis of a proposal for stage two. Stage-one success did not guarantee stage-two funding. A business had to meet the conditions of the cohort-entry stage gates and then apply to the separate full-stage competition, which the brief describes as invite only. The brief says the later stage would support delivery of the innovation and growth plan. Treat that as a conditional pathway, not as an automatic second award.

Eligibility for the closed round

The lead applicant had to be a UK-registered business of any size. The competition was open to single applicants only. A business could apply and receive funding only once in this first-stage competition. This means the entry route was not a consortium application with several co-leads. Subcontractors were allowed, but the lead business remained responsible for the application, the project and the eligible costs.

The proposed project had to request £50,000, last six months, start by 1 December 2026 and end by 31 May 2027. Projects had to start on the first day of a month, even if that day was not a working day, and the applicant could not begin before Innovate UK approved the Grant Offer Letter. The brief says a project could end earlier with agreement from the Cohort Manager if required. Funded organisations had to carry out project work in the UK and intend to exploit the results from or in the UK.

Every application also had to include a video in response to the video-pitch question. The business and project had to be ambitious about decarbonising concrete, show that the solution had begun to build traction in the construction industry, and be active in the sustainable concrete supply chain. A letter of support from a commercial entity currently operating in that supply chain was required. The supporting organisation could be a concrete producer, concrete user or trade association, and the letter had to explain its role in the supply chain and why the idea had potential to scale within the concrete industry. It did not need to be a contract or formal partnership.

Applicants had to account for Minimal Financial Assistance. The brief sets the limit at £315,000 for an enterprise over the applicable three-year rolling financial period. The application required a declaration of previous relevant funding, and an applicant would be ineligible if the limit was exceeded. Businesses should retain the supporting records for six years as required by the brief. Other checks could also prevent an award, including outstanding sums owed to Innovate UK, failure to exploit an earlier funded project, an overdue independent accountant’s report or failure to comply with grant terms.

Subcontracting was permitted from anywhere in the UK through the applicant’s usual procurement process. An overseas subcontractor required a specific case explaining why a UK subcontractor could not be used, evidence of UK contractors approached, and reasons those contractors could not work with the applicant. All subcontractor costs had to be justified and appropriate to the eligible project costs. A lower overseas price alone was not enough.

Technical and commercial scope

The brief focused on solutions that could decarbonise concrete and had a credible route to adoption. Eligible technology areas included alternatives to Ordinary Portland Cement as a binder, such as calcined clay or calcined-clay-and-limestone combinations; improvements to cement or concrete production efficiency, including kiln efficiency or lower binder content; cement recycling; additives that reduce the carbon footprint of new concrete structures; using concrete to sequester or trap carbon; concrete chemistry for reinforced concrete where the decarbonisation benefit was clear; and improvements in the efficiency of cement and concrete use.

The proposal also had to consider how the solution aligned with the Target Product Profiles associated with the Innovate UK-supported Advance Market Commitment. The competition was seeking a varied portfolio across technology maturity, business maturity and growth potential, but the basic commercial test remained important: the applicant needed to show traction, a value proposition, team capability, a go-to-market strategy, the support needed to accelerate growth, and what the programme would enable the business to achieve.

The grant could support commercialisation plan development and implementation, financing strategy, revenue-model analysis, sales and marketing strategy, validated market research, customer validation and testing, assessment of required offtake volumes, testing and certification, product insurability, standards compliance, regulatory support, pilot or demonstration operating costs, intellectual-property work, environmental product declarations, life-cycle assessment, ESG and impact strategy, risk analysis, risk controls, scaling data and data sharing.

The brief excluded several areas. It did not fund fresh fly ash or GGBS as principal supplementary cementitious materials unless the innovation actively sought to reduce their use. It excluded alternative fuels for cement production, aggregate or aggregate replacements, carbon capture and storage applied to cement where the captured carbon was not sequestered in concrete, making reinforcing steel last longer, replacing concrete with other building materials, and additives considered without their use in concrete. Proposals that were not original, were out of scope or duplicated other work were also excluded. Separate subsidy-control, sanctions, export-performance and domestic-input restrictions applied.

How the closed round required applicants to apply

The application was submitted through the Innovation Funding Service. Before starting, applicants were told to read the guidance on applying for an Innovate UK competition. The lead applicant was responsible for ensuring that the information was correct, that the proposal met the eligibility and scope rules, and that every section was complete. A submitted application could be reopened before the deadline, but it had to be resubmitted before the competition closed.

The form was divided into four sections: project details, application questions, finances and project impact. The project-details section required an application team, project title, start date and duration. It also asked for a project summary of up to 400 words, a public description of up to 400 words and a scope answer of up to 400 words. The public description needed to be suitable for publication and could not contain commercially sensitive information. The brief warned applicants not to include website addresses or URLs in answers because they would not be viewed or opened.

Applicants had to answer every question. Each answer could be up to 400 words, and the assessment used the competition’s published scoring method. The application also needed a complete Minimal Financial Assistance declaration as a legible PDF no larger than 10MB, with the lead applicant identifying the attached declaration in the relevant answer. The video pitch had to be uploaded in response to the specified application question. The finance section had to request 100% funding, keep total project costs within the permitted maximum and align the budget with the six-month innovation and growth-plan work. An applicant could mention a voluntary contribution in an answer, but it could not be entered in the finance section.

For a future round, these steps should be treated as a checklist to revisit rather than as an active route. The closed record cannot accept a new application. First confirm that Innovate UK has published a new stage-one competition with its own deadline and competition identifier. Then reread the current brief, because the date window, scope, documents and funding rules may change. Only after that should a business assemble its commercial support letter, MFA history, video, budget and four-part application.

Historical timeline and what happened after the deadline

The published round opened on 20 April 2026. The official timeline listed an online briefing on 24 April, drop-in sessions on 1 May, 21 May and 18 June, and the closing point of 8 July 2026 at 11:00am. It then listed an invitation-to-interview date of 12 August, interview panels beginning on 7 September and ending on 11 September, applicant notification on 17 September, and project starts from 1 December 2026. These dates describe the closed round’s process; they do not reopen applications.

The programme brief says there may be up to five entry rounds between April 2026 and January 2028, while the full stage is expected to open in February 2027 and remain open until December 2028. Because the official opportunity page checked here does not publish a new stage-one closing date, this page does not invent one. The correct action for a prospective applicant is to monitor the official UKRI and Innovation Funding Service records and use the latest published entry competition if and when it appears.

Official links

• UKRI opportunity record: https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/growth-cohorts-next-generation-low-carbon-concrete-cohort-entry/
• Innovation Funding Service competition brief: https://apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk/competition/2450/overview/261cbeea-5b87-4730-9fe9-4d04acc3725f

The first link is the primary public record and currently identifies the opportunity as closed. The second contains the detailed eligibility, scope, funding, timeline and application instructions for the archived entry round. Check both official records before relying on any future round or stage-two announcement.