Organisations across all sectors are being encouraged to submit funding applications for grants worth up to £50,000. 

The funding is designed to support collaborative efforts in developing new tools, data sets, and approaches that enhance regulatory decision-making. Additionally, it aims to aid policymaking to enable agile and proportionate regulation in response to innovation.

Collaborations seeking funding are expected to build evidence bases, strengthen partnerships and knowledge transfer, including cross-cutting themes and challenges, influence policy through research insights translating evidence into best practice, and enhance business capacity to exploit commercial opportunities

“We fully support the aims of this competition from Innovate UK’s Regulatory Science and Innovation Networks programme,” said the organisation’s head of regulatory affairs, Elaine Gemmell.

“Indeed, we are currently in the process of gauging interest from other parties.  

“By funding up to 30 collaborations, initiatives like these are vital to encouraging collaborative working and serving to ultimately foster better regulatory decision making. 

“The programme contributes to the creation of a pro-innovation regulatory environment that benefits society and this competition could be the start of some exciting new ideas which inform future regulatory policy and practice and contribute to better healthcare outcomes for Scottish patients.”

Innovate UK envisions that this investment will contribute to securing the UK’s position as a global leader in regulatory science. Successful collaborations in the discovery phase will have the opportunity to apply for the implementation phase of the competition, scheduled to open on or after August 2024.

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“Innovate UK believes that by building on existing regulatory science activity, this investment will contribute to securing the UK’s position as a global leader in regulatory science,” continued Gemmell.

“If successful in the discovery phase, they will have the opportunity of developing their proposals with a package of support including workshops and events that will assist in honing their applications for the Implementation phase while encouraging networking between collaborations.” 

Total grant funding requests for the discovery phase must not exceed £50,000. The competition deadline is the 31st of January, 2024, at 11 am.

Gemmell also added: “It is also great to see the focus here on equality, diversity, and inclusion, including the recognition that diversity contributes to enhanced innovation and ultimately, commercial success.”