Health and Life Science Accelerators: Expression of Interest

Innovate UK will support the development of early-stage health and life science businesses in the UK by funding a series of business accelerators. These accelerators will recruit spinouts, start-ups, and entrepreneurial minded academics to test their ideas and develop concepts with support from key stakeholders from relevant ecosystems.

The aim of this expression of interest (EoI) competition is to recruit accelerator providers to deliver a series of health and life sciences focussed accelerators. You must have the capacity to run a minimum of 2 accelerators to start between January 2023 and March 2025. Each accelerator will have themes determined by Innovate UK. The subject theme areas can include but are not limited to:

• child health
• FemTech (or female technology)
• engineering biology
• neuroscience and neurotech
• microbiome and biofilm innovation
• MedTech and diagnostics
• oncology

Applicants for to be accelerator service providers must be able to demonstrate ability to run accelerators across the UK.

Eligibility

To lead an application your organisation must be a UK registered:

• business of any size
• academic institution
• public sector research establishment (PSRE)
• research council institute
• independent research organisation (IRO)
• not for profit research and technology organisation (RTO), including catapults

Your organisation must not act in any way to gain selective commercial or economic advantage from the outputs of this proposal.

Funding available

Successful applicants will join a pool of Accelerator Providers. You will be eligible for funding of up to £500,000 for each accelerator you are asked to manage. We expect to fund up to 10 accelerators by March 2025. We will recruit between 2 to 6 accelerator suppliers.

At this expression of interest (EoI) phase you are not required to provide a detailed breakdown of your activity or budget. You will be required to provide a more detailed budget forecast in advance of any accelerator you are asked to manage.

The organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 100% of the total eligible project costs. Academic institutions will be funded at 80% FEC.

Scope

The aim of this expression of interest (EoI) competition is to recruit accelerator service providers to deliver health and life sciences focussed accelerators. You must have the capacity to run a minimum of 2 accelerators to start between January 2023 and March 2025.

We want accelerators to support organisations with the potential to enable fair, impartial and sustainable forms of community participation in research across the UK.

No funding will be provided in this EoI competition. Potential providers selected at this EoI phase will be invited to run accelerators. Further details about the timeline and requirements for this phase will be released in due course.

As an accelerator provider you will be awarded funding to:

• promote the opportunity and recruit interested parties to a workshop or bootcamp
• develop a methodology to assess and choose a final cohort of up to ten participants to attend and complete an accelerator
• develop and deliver an accelerator programme to support a subject theme area
• partner with or subcontract organisations that represent the ecosystem associated with the subject theme area
• advise and support the participants, including scientific, commercial, regulatory and investment expertise
• provide a package of training that instils the fundamentals of commercialisation and entrepreneurship in the members of the cohort

Your proposal must describe how you will set up and manage your accelerators. Your proposal for each accelerator must be 8 to 9 weeks in length and must include in person and online workshops. At the end of each accelerator, participants must be able to seek investment or feasibility grant funding.

Support

A briefing event will be held online at 12 noon on Wednesday 9th November: click here for the joining link.