Funding Programmes

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How our funding can support your business

Through our Strength in Places Programmes we aim to provide a variety of funding schemes to support the machinery community and create impact within the sector.

Innovation for Machinery (I4M)

I4M gives SME businesses in West Yorkshire (WY) and Greater Manchester (GM) access to the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and universities in WY and GM. I4M provides support at no charge to accelerate the development of the next generation of machinery and create new jobs and growth in this sector. The scheme is designed to remove the barriers to innovation funding for SMEs.

Apply for I4M now

Are you eligble?

We’ve listened to the feedback from previous rounds of our Innovation for Machinery funding scheme and have created two points of entry into the funding scheme to maximise the impact for our machinery manufacturing community:

Research Route

Enables access machinery expertise at no cost from NPL or any university based in the GM or WY regions.
Provides funding of up to £50,000 in project costs direct to the selected deliverer.
Project must involve at least NPL or at least one university based in the GM and WY regions.

Find out if you are eligible for I4M

Consultancy Route

Supports companies to procure consultancy, services, or training to support a machinery project.
Provides funding of up to £10,000 on a 50% match funded basis.
Funding is for purchased services only (excludes materials, equipment, T&S, etc. and must be used to support a machinery development project that meets the fund scope).
Services can be sought from any company in the UK offering eligible services.
Please note, previous beneficiaries of AMPI funding, including I4M, are only eligible for this route.

Who could you be working with?

This scheme is managed by NPL on behalf of the Advanced Machinery and Productivity Institute (AMPI) and funded through UKRI’s Strength in Places Fund.

For any questions or further information please contact the AMPI team, AMPI.SIPF@npl.co.uk.

If your I4M application is successful, some research projects may be working with our research consortium partners.

Find out more about our consortium partners

“This project allowed rapid deployment of academic support without many hurdles. The six-figure revenue has been realised – with more to come – and it’s helped bolster follow-on commitment. Good value for money.”

Aaron Holt, CEO, Holtex

Read about the Holtex’s I4M success

Machinery Matters: Driving growth into machinery development across the UK

We spoke to our machinery manufacturing community about the impact an Advanced Machinery Institute could have on the sector, heard about the current state of the machinery manufacturing sector within the UK from Iain Minton and Aaron Holt, and announced the exciting launch of our refreshed I4M funding scheme.

Click here to hear Gareth Edwards, AMPI Programme Director, as he talks through the scope and structure of the I4M funding scheme as well as openeing up the floor to questions from our machinery manufacturing community.

Tune into Gareth’s I4M briefing

Innovation for Machinery is government funding provided through UK Research and Innovation’s flagship Strength in Places Fund.