The applicant
- Leadership role: You must hold a C-suite position or be a founder in a senior decision-making leadership role at a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) in the engineering or deep tech sector.
- Work eligibility: Applicants of any nationality are eligible, provided you have the legal right to work in the UK.
- One applicant per company: Only one individual from each company may apply. The application must be completed and submitted by the individual intending to participate in the programme.
- Diversity and Inclusion: We actively encourage applications from individuals who are underrepresented in the UK engineering and deep tech sector.
- A second applicant from an alumna/us’ company may be considered in a future round if they belong to a group underrepresented in UK engineering. This includes, but is not limited to women, people from a Black, Asian or minority ethnic background, and disabled people. If you do not identify with any of these groups but believe you represent an underrepresented community in UK engineering and deep tech, please contact us at [email protected] to confirm your eligibility. This positive action supports our commitment to building a more diverse and inclusive talent pipeline and broadening participation in the Academy's grant programme.
The company
- Size: Your company needs to have at least 10 employees.
- Market traction: Leaders of both pre-revenue and post-revenue high-growth SMEs are eligible, if they can provide evidence of market traction (pilots, joint venture agreements, licensing, sales, or other compelling evidence).
- Commercial Readiness Level: 6 and above. For more information about Commercialisation Readiness Level see here.
- Financial threshold: Your company must have raised at least £1 million through one or more of the following: equity investment, grant funding and/or revenue (turnover from the last financial year).
- UK based: Your company must be registered in the UK with Companies House and have its head office located in the UK (for multinational companies).
- Ownership structure: Only SMEs that are not wholly or majority owned by another company are eligible (SME must meet the EU definition).
- Software companies: Software businesses should be developing foundational technologies that drive deep tech innovation (solutions that enable or underpin future technological breakthroughs). These solutions should be innovative and ideally protectable, for example through intellectual property or patents.
Diversity & Talent
We actively encourage applications from individuals who are underrepresented in the UK engineering and deep tech sector. Groups that are persistently underrepresented in UK engineering are women, people from a Black, Asian or minority ethnic background, neurodiverse individuals, first-generation university students and disabled people.
