DRIVE35 Scale-up Fund Drawdown 6

DRIVE35 (Driving Research and Investment in Vehicle Electrification) is a Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST) led programme aimed at transforming the UK's automotive industry. This is achieved by supporting R&D and the commercial scale up of innovative zero emission vehicle technologies, and unlocking capital investment in zero emission vehicles, batteries, and their wider supply chain. Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), will work with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST) and the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK (APC) to invest up to £150 million as part of the DRIVE35 Scale Up Fund. This is subject to a sufficient number of high quality applications being received. This funding is from the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, and is delivered by the Advanced Propulsion Centre and Innovate UK. This competition is part of a long term commitment for driving growth sectors within the Governments Industrial Strategy . The aim of the Scale up Fund is to support manufacturing facility and process development at pilot scale or demonstration scale. These projects will enable businesses to validate manufacturing capability and commercial viability, achieving market entry at the targeted production volume from the project outcomes. Your proposal must justify the funding required with a case for government intervention and be matched by substantial private investment. In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process. This competition has a funding limit, so we may not be able to fund all the proposed projects. It may be the case that your project scores highly but we are still unable to fund it. Our experience from similar competitions suggests that you could have 30% chance of success. We consider a range of factors when determining whether to provide funding to applicants. This includes an assessment of prior conduct, such as any outstanding payments owed to Innovate UK or UKRI. Such factors may influence the funding decision, potentially resulting in a refusal of funding or an award subject to additional scrutiny. The Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST) is the budget holder for the DRIVE35 Programme and has the final funding decision. We also reserve the right to adjust funding allocations for any of our competitions. This may be in response to changes in policy, portfolio funding considerations or broader government funding decisions. The deadline for this drawdown submission is 11am UK time on the deadline stated in this Innovate UK competition brief . We cannot guarantee other government or third party sites will always show the correct competition information. We plan to open Drawdown 7 on the next working day after this competition closes, but this may change. Drawdown 7 will be a separate competition on IFS. If you do not submit your application to this competition by the deadline, it will not carry over to Drawdown 7. You will need to start and submit a new application if you want to apply to Drawdown 7. Funding type Grant Project size Your project’s total eligible grant funding request must be between £2.5 million and £20 million. Your project’s total eligible costs must be over £5 million. Accessibility and Inclusion We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and are committed to making our application process accessible to everyone. This includes making reasonable adjustments for people who have a disability or a long term condition and face barriers applying to us. You can contact us at any time to ask for guidance. We recommend you contact us at least 15 working days before this competition’s closing date to allow us to put the most suitable support in place. The support we can provide may be limited if you contact us close to the competition deadline. You can contact Innovate UK by email or call 0300 321 4357. Our phone lines are open from 9am to 12pm a... Contains public sector information from Find a grant, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Who can apply Your project Your project must: be a single applicant or consortia led have a total grant funding request of between £2.5 million and £20 million have total eligible costs of at least £5 million last for at least 12 months, including an initial period where you can raise the co-investment before your project starts start from 1 September 2027 Any organisation receiving funding must carry out its project work in the UK, intend to exploit the results in the UK, and spend most of the funding within the UK. Projects must always start on the first of the month, even if this is a non-working day. You must not start your project until your Grant Funding Agreement has been approved by Innovate UK. Any delays within Project Setup may mean we need to delay your project start date. You must only include eligible project costs in your application. See our overview of eligible project costs . Eligible capital costs are explained within the application. For specific guidance, see the e...