Innovate UK: Future Flight, Regional Demonstrator Competition

Overview

Description

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will work with the Department for Transport (DfT) to invest up to £400,000 in new innovation projects.

These projects will be to demonstrate the commercial viability of regional drone, electric take off and landing (eVTOL) or zero emission conventional take off and landing (CTOL) aircraft operations or services in the UK. This will foster investment and catalyse commercialisation of future flight products and services.

The aim of this competition is to accelerate the transition from trials of cutting edge innovations to real world commercial operations at a regional scale. This will unlock high value, socio-economic benefits for UK communities and meet the objectives of the DfT Future of Flight programme.

Aims

Your project must deliver one or more of the following:

• a detailed pathway to transform demonstrations to real world commercial operations at scale in a selected UK geographical area
• a business case for commercial drone, eVTOL or zero emission CTOL aircraft services that deliver high value socio-economic benefits to a selected UK geographical area
• a proof of concept, or concept of operations, for commercial drone, eVTOL or zero emission CTOL aircraft services at scale across a selected UK geographical area
• a development plan for a living lab or test bed, representative of the future flight operating ecosystem, to accelerate regional scale regulatory, community and infrastructure (physical, digital, airspace, energy, communications) readiness for commercial drone, eVTOL or zero emission CTOL aircraft operations
• acceleration of multimodal transport with drone, eVTOL or zero emission CTOL aircraft integrated into regional transport networks or regional transport hubs, including airports
• a commercial development plan for drone, eVTOL or zero emission CTOL aircraft services in a selected UK geographical area, based on identified commercially viable use cases that meet socio-economic needs for the region and customer demand

Funding Level & Notes

Your project’s total eligible grant funding request must be between £50,000 and £200,000.

You must only include eligible project costs in your application. See our overview of eligible project costs. For specific guidance, see the eligibility section in this competition.

Who can Apply

Your project must:

• have a grant funding request of between £50,000 and £200,000
• last between five and six months
• carry out all of its project work in the UK, unless specifically stated and pre-approved by Innovate UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
• start on 1 October 2025
• end by 31 March 2026

Lead organisation

To lead a project your organisation must:

• be a UK registered business of any size, academic institution, research and technology (RTO), charity or public sector organisation
• collaborate with other UK registered organisations
• involve at least one micro, small or medium sized enterprise (SME)
• involve at least one local government authority
• involve at least one operator, end user or customer

You can include non-UK organisations in your project, with them being either a non-funded partner or an overseas subcontractor, where justification must be provided.

Academic institutions can lead.

Project team

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:

• business of any size
• academic institution
• charity
• not for profit
• public sector organisation
• research and technology organisation (RTO)

See Guidance for full details.