SMARTCymru / SMART Flexible Innovation Support

What it is

Welsh Government's SMART Flexible Innovation Support (FIS): discretionary RD&I grant funding, innovation expertise and IP support for organisations with an operational base in Wales — enquiry-led, with no published award bands for the core SMART Innovation Funding strand. One strand is currently open as a competitive call: the SMART Capital Equipment Fund offers grants of £50,000–£250,000 (typically up to 50% of eligible capital costs, minimum project size £100,000) for productivity-enhancing and circular-economy equipment, with an application deadline of 23:59 on 25 September 2026.

Verified 2026-08-21 on businesswales.gov.wales (live fetches): SMART FIS live and enquiry-led via the Business Wales innovation contact form (the page notes above-usual demand and slower responses); SMART Innovation Funding is open to businesses of all sizes, social enterprises, knowledge-based institutions and public sector, priority sectors digital / net zero / agri-tech & food / creative / life sciences / materials & manufacturing. SMART Capital Equipment Fund competitive call OPEN at .../access-funding-and-support/smart-capital-equipment-fund-competitive-call: £50k–£250k, eligible capital costs ≥£100k, typically ≤50% intervention rate, deadline 2026-09-25 23:59, decisions w/c 26 Oct 2026, outcomes evidenced by 31 Mar 2028, apply by email to SMART.CapitalCall@gov.wales; that call excludes solar/PV and general decarbonisation kit, working capital and vehicles. Row deadline is null because the umbrella scheme is rolling/enquiry-led — the 25 Sep 2026 deadline applies to the capital call strand only. The rescued record's '£20m SMART FIS programme' figure was NOT found on today's pages and has been dropped.