UK-Germany Bilateral Collaborative R&D Round 5 opens for UK SMEs with a German partner

UK-Germany Bilateral Collaborative R&D Round 5 opens for UK SMEs with a German partner

28 September 2026 — Innovate UK opened the fifth round of its UK-Germany Bilateral Collaborative R&D competition on Monday 28 September 2026. Working with Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE), Innovate UK will invest up to £2.4 million in business-led industrial research projects. The competition closes at 11am UK time on Tuesday 1 December 2026.

Who can apply

The lead must be a UK-registered micro, small or medium-sized enterprise, and the project must include at least one German-registered SME that is a separate, unlinked legal entity and applies in parallel to Germany's ZIM programme. German partners are funded by AiF Projekt GmbH on behalf of BMWE, not by Innovate UK, and both funders must select the project independently for it to go ahead.

Other UK partners can be businesses of any size, academic institutions or research and technology organisations. No single country or partner may account for more than 70% of total project costs, and subcontractors are capped at 20% of the UK eligible costs. An organisation can lead one application and collaborate on two more.

What it funds

• Sectors: projects must focus on clean energy, life sciences or engineering biology.
• Type: industrial research only, with a route to market within two to three years of completion.
• Grant size: the UK grant request must be between £100,000 and £350,000 per project.
• Funding rates for UK businesses: up to 70% of eligible costs for micro and small firms, 60% for medium-sized and 50% for large organisations.
• Timing: projects last 12 to 24 months and must start on 1 August 2027. The brief says projects must end by "31 June 2029", a date that does not exist; applicants should ask Innovate UK to confirm the intended end date.

Innovate UK says experience from similar competitions suggests about a 10% chance of success.

Key dates

• 28 September 2026: competition opens.
• 12 October 2026: online briefing at 1pm.
• 1 December 2026, 11am: competition closes.
• 30 April 2027: applicants notified.

The Innovation Funding Service will be down for maintenance from 4pm on Friday 2 October to 10am on Monday 5 October 2026.

What to do

• Confirm that your German partner is an SME eligible for ZIM and has started its own application with AiF; without it, the UK application is ineligible.
• Check that the project fits one of the three sectors and is industrial research rather than experimental development.
• Agree the cost split early so that neither country nor any one partner goes above 70%.
• Register for the 12 October briefing and plan submission well before 1 December, avoiding the early-October maintenance window.

Sources

• Innovate UK, Innovation Funding Service: UK-Germany Bilateral Collaborative R&D: Round 5 (competition 2583) — 28 September 2026
• Innovate UK, Innovation Funding Service: Innovation competitions (listing) — 28 September 2026