Contracts for Innovation: Resource Efficiency Impact Validation Competition
The Contracts for Innovation competition provides funding to trial and validate the impacts of resource efficiency solutions in the automotive, chemicals and construction sectors.
Documents
Details
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and Innovate UK are funding a Contracts for Innovation competition to help industry to identify the emissions saving potential of resource efficiency solutions, building on the insights from the DESNZ Unlocking Resource Efficiency research.
Up to £3 million in funding is available to support organisations to deliver an impact validation report for promising resource efficiency solutions. This should be informed by a demonstration or trial, which may be carried out as part of the project or otherwise conducted within the last 5 years.
The innovative resource efficiency solutions should address themes in one of the following strands:
- Resource Efficient Chemicals Impacts
- Resource Efficient Construction Impacts
- Resource Efficient Automotive Impacts
An impact validation report must be submitted at the end of the project. The draft specification for this report is provided above.
Eligibility
We welcome applications from any size or type of organisation with a proposal that addresses resource efficiency opportunities within the target sectors:
- chemicals
- construction
- automotive
Projects must:
- start no sooner than 1 November 2025
- end by 31 March 2026
- last between 3 and 5 months
- have total costs of between £50,000 and £300,000, inclusive of VAT. We expect the majority of projects to have costs less than £100,000
How to apply
The Contracts for Innovation competition is now open.
Complete and submit the application forms for the relevant competitions (see application form links in the Documents section above) by 11am on Wednesday 27 August 2025.
There is guidance on how to apply for each competition strand alongside the application forms.
Get in touch
If you need more information about the Contracts for Innovation competition or the application process, please contact Innovate UK at support@iuk.ukri.org.
Online launch event, 16 July 2025
Innovate UK Business Connect are hosting an online launch event to provide potential bidders with an overview of the competition and application process:
- register to attend the launch event, Wednesday 16 July 2025, 10.00 to 11.30am
Updates to this page
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This competition is now open, and application forms are available from this page.
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Added Contracts for Innovation: Resource Efficiency Impact - Validation report specification.
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First published.