Innovate UK Women in Innovation Awards
Innovate UK (UKRI)
Worth
up to £75,000
Deadline
Rolling — no fixed deadline
What it is
£75,000 grant plus 12 months of bespoke business support for women founders or co-founders of UK-registered SMEs with an innovation aligned to advanced manufacturing, digital and technologies, or life sciences — currently between rounds (2025/26 closed 4 Feb 2026).
⚠️ ingest normalisation 2026-08-21: the award is for WOMEN founders/directors — the wizard collects no such signal, so the defining criterion is a heavy preferred rule and unconfirmed businesses score ~67%, never 100%. Verified 2026-08-21 on ukri.org opportunity page: status Closed — 2025/26 window ran 26 Nov 2025 (9:30) to 4 Feb 2026 (11:00); grant of up to £75,000 plus bespoke business support (12 months per UKRI news, which reports 61 winners and 39 highly commended in the latest round). No 2026/27 competition announced as of today (annual ~Nov–Feb pattern — next window is NOT announced, do not state as fact); rolling:true is the between-rounds convention, not an open application route. ⚠️ Core criterion the engine cannot express: applicant must be a WOMAN founder or co-founder of the UK-registered micro/small/medium enterprise (late-stage start-up) — surface this restriction in UI copy.
Official sourceDoes your business qualify?
Eligibility rules are where schemes get fiddly. GovOwed checks your business against Innovate UK Women in Innovation Awards — and every other UK scheme we track — in about 60 seconds, free. The £29 report then explains exactly why you qualify, drafts your answers and walks you through the real application step by step.
Check free — see what you're owedNo sign-up to scan · keep 100% of anything you win · re-runs free for 12 months
Related schemes
Browse all schemesInformation, not financial advice; eligibility is decided by the funder. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Schemes change — confirm details on the official page before applying.