R&D funding roundup – June 2025

A roundup of recent funding opportunities for researchers, companies and creatives.

CreaTech Frontiers Explore and Experiment Grants: Two levels of grants for freelancers, microbusinesses, and SMEs working in creative technologies. Explore Grants of up to £5k are available for projects that require an introduction to collaborative R&D and development of initial ideas for innovative content, products or services. Experiment grants of up to £10k are available for the development of existing concepts, projects or prototypes for innovative content, products or services through collaborative R&D (closes 4 August 2025).

Innovate UK Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (round 3): UK registered academic institutions, research and technology organisations or Catapults can apply for a share of up to £9 million to fund innovation projects with businesses or not for profit organisations (closes 17 September 2025).

UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships: round 10, business and non-academic: A share of up to £100 million for UK registered organisations undertaking ambitious research and innovation projects in any sector, and tailored support to develop careers for future leaders (closes 5 November 2025).

UK Games Fund Prototype Fund: EoIs for Round 18: Grants of up to £30k are available for established companies with a game development project at an early stage who have been invited to apply following submission of their expression of interest. (no end date specified but successful projects must be able to start in October 2025).

UK Games Fund Content Fund: EoIs: Commercial games-for-entertainment content grants of between £50k and £150k are available to UK registered SMEs with PAYE employees engaged in games development work in the UK. (open – no end date). 

AHRC responsive mode: Catalyst awards: Awards to support researchers without prior experience of leading a significant research project to accelerate their trajectory as independent researchers, to unlock their potential, build leadership and convenor experience (open – no end date).

AHRC responsive mode: Curiosity awards: Flexible awards to fund fundamental research that leads to new research agendas, networking activity and idea generation, which enables the development of further research opportunities and new research agendas (open – no end date).

British Film Council Film Festival XR Showcase Travel Grants: Grants to help Short and Feature filmmakers, and XR creatives, travel to international events where their work is being screened (open – no end date).

Creative Growth Finance Fund: Scale-up loans for UK businesses in the Creative Industries (open – no end date).

Creative UK: Creative Enterprise Business Builder: Grants of up to £2.5k to support companies who work in moving image for storytelling, spanning film television, games, animation and immersive industries (open – no end date).

Daphne Jackson Fellowship Grants: Fellowships for those looking to return to a research career after a break of two or more years for family, health or caring reasons. The aim is to give participants the confidence and skills they need to make a successful return to research (open – no end date).

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships: Funding to help businesses to partner with an academic organisation, research organisation or a Catapult, or to employ a graduate with the skills and knowledge that can help the business to innovate and grow (open – no end date).

BFI Doc Society Features Fund: Support of up to a maximum of £150,000 per feature documentary film or immersive non-fiction project in the form of grants (open call – no end date).

Arts Council National Lottery Project Grants: Grants of between £1,000 and £100,000 to support individual practitioners, community and cultural organisations working on arts, libraries and museums projects. Priority is currently given to Supporting Grassroots Music, Museum Unlocking Collections and Universal Library Offers projects (open call – no end date). 

BFI Doc Society Research and Development Fund: Funding to support and nurture independent non-fiction films and immersive projects by UK filmmakers: prioritising expansive, director-led storytelling. The fund backs ambitious, independent feature documentary films and immersive projects intended for theatrical release, from both emerging talent and more established directors (annual, rolling call opened on 1 April for the year ahead).

Coming soon

Immersive Arts Funding: The next round of Immersive Arts funding will go live in July and will be open for applications until the end of September 2025. Awards will be announced in January 2026, with funded projects starting in February 2026 (opens July 2025, date to be confirmed).

Innovate UK innovation loans future economy: Round 22: Innovate UK is offering up to £25 million in loans to micro, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Innovate UK innovation loans are for highly innovative late stage research and development (R&D) projects with the best potential for the future. There must be a clear route to commercialisation and economic impact (opens 3 July 2025).

XR Network+ XR Labs Fund: Grants of up to £20k to support the development of new technology and extended reality prototypes at university facilities. The full economic cost (FEC) of projects can be up to £25k. XR Network+ will fund 80% of the FEC (opens 14 July 2025).

Published on 24 June 2025