Funding competition Transforming Cancer Therapeutics
UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £10 million to develop next generation immunotherapies for cancer or life-changing treatments for paediatric cancers.
- Competition opens: Wednesday 15 November 2023
- Competition closes: Wednesday 24 January 2024 4:00pm
This competition is now closed.
Competition sections
Description
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £10 million in innovation projects to advance next-generation immunotherapies for cancer or life-changing treatment options for childhood cancers.
Your project can focus on one or more of the following:
- next generation immunotherapies and immunomodulatory drugs
- manipulation of the tumour microenvironment to promote immune responses against solid tumours
- novel therapeutics that consider the unique characteristics of paediatric or young people’s cancers
- clinical decision support tools to optimise treatment selection and therapeutic dosing for children and young people
This list is not intended to be exhaustive.
In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process.
This competition closes at 4pm UK time on the deadline stated.Funding type
Grant
Project size
Your project’s total costs must be between £150,000 and £4 million. The total grant request cannot exceed £2 million.
Who can apply
Your project
Your project must:
- have total costs between £150,000 and £4 million
- not exceed a grant request of £2 million
- have at least 50% of the total project costs shared by the SMEs, if collaborative
- start by 1 Aug 2024
- end by 31 July 2026
- last between 6 and 24 months
- carry out all of its project work in the UK
- intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
Projects must always start on the first of the month and this must be stated within your application. Your project start date will be reflected in your grant offer letter if you are successful.
You must only include eligible project costs in your application. If you have requested an overall grant of over £500,000, and your online application is successful at written assessment, you may be invited to attend an interview.
Under current restrictions, this competition will not fund any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any Russian or Belarusian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian or Belarusian source.
Lead organisation
To lead a project or work alone your organisation must be a UK registered micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME).
More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules.
Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone.
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)
Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service (IFS) by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once partners have accepted the invitation, they will be asked to login or to create an account in IFS. They are responsible for entering their own project costs and completing their Project Impact questions in the application.
Partners must accept terms and conditions (T&Cs) and complete the subsidy question in order for the application to be submitted.
To be an eligible collaboration, the lead and at least one other organisation must apply for funding when entering their costs into the application.
Non-funded partners
Your project can include partners that do not receive any of this competition’s funding, for example non-UK businesses. Their costs will count towards the total project costs.
Subcontractors
Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.
Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK and you must select them through your usual procurement process.
You can use subcontractors from overseas but must make the case in your application as to why you could not use suppliers from the UK.
You must provide a detailed rationale, evidence of the potential UK contractors you approached and the reasons why they were unable to work with you. We will not accept a cheaper cost as a sufficient reason to use an overseas subcontractor.
All subcontractor costs must be justified and appropriate to the total project costs.
Extenuating circumstances where overseas work may be allowable include, for example, clinical trial in a specific patient population. The application assessors will be asked to judge whether you have sufficiently made a case for the use of overseas subcontractors.
Number of applications
An SME can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in two further applications.
If an SME is not leading any application, it can collaborate in any number of applications.
A large business, academic institution, research and technology organisation (RTO), charity, not for profit or public sector organisation can collaborate on any number of applications.Previous applications
You can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.
You can make a maximum of 2 submissions to Innovate UK with any given proposal. If Innovate UK judges that your proposal is not materially different from your previous proposal, it will be counted towards this maximum.
If your application goes through to assessment and is unsuccessful, you can reapply with the same proposal once more.
We will not award you funding if you have:
- failed to exploit a previously funded project
- an overdue independent accountant’s report
- failed to comply with grant terms and conditions
Subsidy control (and State aid where applicable)
This competition provides funding in line with the Subsidy Control Act 2022. Further information about the Subsidy requirements can be found within the Subsidy Control Act 2022 (legislation.gov.uk).
Innovate UK is unable to award organisations that are considered to be in financial difficulty. We will conduct financial viability and eligibility tests to confirm this is not the case following the application stage.
EU State aid rules now only apply in limited circumstances. Please see our general guidance to check if these rules apply to your organisation.
Further Information
If you are unsure about your obligations under the Subsidy Control Act 2022 or the State aid rules, you should take independent legal advice. We are unable to advise on individual eligibility or legal obligations.
You must always make sure that the funding awarded to you is compliant with all current Subsidy Control legislation applicable in the United Kingdom.
This aims to regulate any advantage granted by a public sector body which threatens to, or actually distorts competition in the United Kingdom or any other country or countries.
Funding
Up to £10 million has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant. You must not claim more than £2 million in grant against your total project costs. A minimum of 50% of your total eligible project costs must be incurred by SMEs, if collaborative.
If the majority of your organisation’s work on the project is commercial or economic, your funding request must not exceed the limits below. These limits apply even if your organisation normally acts non-economically but for the purpose of this project will be undertaking commercial or economic activity.
For industrial research projects, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:
- up to 70% if you are a micro or small organisation
- up to 60% if you are a medium sized organisation
- up to 50% if you are a large organisation
For experimental development projects which are nearer to market, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:
- up to 45% if you are a micro or small organisation
- up to 35% if you are a medium sized organisation
- up to 25% if you are a large organisation
For more information on company sizes, please refer to the company accounts guidance.
If you are applying for an award funded under State aid Regulations, the definitions are set out in the European Commission Recommendation of 6 May 2003.
Research participation
The research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 50% of the total eligible project costs. If your consortium contains more than one research organisation undertaking non-economic activity, this maximum is shared between them. Of that 50% you could get funding for your eligible project costs of up to:
- 80% of full economic costs (FEC) if you are a Je-S registered institution such as an academic
- 100% of your project costs if you are an RTO, charity, not for profit organisation, public sector organisation or research organisation
Your proposal
The aim of this competition is to support innovation projects that focus on advancing next-generation immunotherapies for cancer or life-changing treatment options for childhood cancers.
We will only support innovation projects conducted to the highest standards of animal welfare.
Further information for proposals involving animal testing is available at the UKRI Good Research Hub and NC3R’s animal welfare guidance.
Your project can include:
- experimental evaluation at laboratory scale
- use of in vitro and in vivo models to evaluate proof of concept or safety
- exploration of potential production mechanisms
- prototyping
- product development planning
- intellectual property protection
- a demonstration of clinical utility and effectiveness
- a demonstration of safety and efficacy including phase 1 and 2 clinical trials
- regulatory planning
We want to fund a variety of projects across the immuno-oncology and paediatric oncology themes including broad technological maturities in various geographical locations across the UK. We call this a portfolio approach.
Specific themes
Your project can focus on one or more of the following:
- next generation immunotherapies and immunomodulatory drugs
- manipulation of the tumour microenvironment to promote immune responses against solid tumours
- novel therapeutics that consider the unique characteristics of paediatric or young people’s cancers
- clinical decision support tools to optimise therapeutic dosing for children and young people
This list is not intended to be exhaustive.
Research categories
Projects we will not fund
We are not funding projects that are:
- therapeutic approaches for adult cancers that do not support the development of immuno-oncology
- cancer diagnostics that are not a companion diagnostic for a specific immunotherapeutic or paediatric oncology approach
We cannot fund projects that are:
- dependent on export performance, for example giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it exports a certain quantity of bread to another country
- dependent on domestic inputs usage, for example giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it uses 50% UK flour in their product
- 15 November 2023
- Competition opens
- 17 November 2023
- Online briefing event: watch the recording
- 24 January 2024 4:00pm
- Competition closes
- 20 February 2024
- Invite to interview
- 18 March 2024
- Interview panel
- 26 April 2024
- Applicants notified
Before you start
You must read the guidance on applying for a competition on the Innovation Funding Service before you start.
Before submitting, it is the lead applicant’s responsibility to make sure:
- that all the information provided in the application is correct
- your proposal meets the eligibility and scope criteria
- all sections of the application are marked as complete
- if collaborative, that all partners have completed all assigned sections and accepted the terms and conditions (T&Cs)
You can reopen your application once submitted, up until the competition deadline. You must resubmit the application before the competition deadline.
What we ask you
The application is split into four sections:
- Project details.
- Application questions.
- Finances.
- Project Impact.
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 providing support, in the form of reasonable adjustments, for people who have a disability or a long-term condition and face barriers applying to us.
You must contact us as early as possible in the application process. We recommend contacting us at least 15 working days before the competition closing date to ensure we can provide you with the most suitable support possible.
You can contact us by emailing support@iuk.ukri.org or calling 0300 321 4357. Our phone lines are open from 9am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).
Interviews
If your application passes the first stage of assessment, you may be invited to attend an interview, where you must give a presentation. Your interview will take place either online or at a designated location. The date and time of your interview will be included in your invitation.
Before the interview and by the deadline stated in the invitation email, you:
- must send a list of who will attend the interview
- must send your interview presentation slides
- can send a written response to the assessors’ feedback
List of attendees
Agree the list with your consortium. Up to 3 people from your project can attend, ideally one person from each organisation. They must all be available on all published interview dates. We are unable to reschedule slots once allocated.
Presentation slides
Your interview presentation must:
- use Microsoft PowerPoint
- be no longer than 15 minutes
- have no more than 10 slides
- not include any video or embedded web links
You cannot change the presentation after you submit it or bring any additional materials to the interview.
Written response to assessor feedback
This is optional and is an opportunity to answer the assessors’ concerns. It can:
- be up to 10 A4 pages in a single PDF or Word document
- include charts or diagrams
Interview
After your presentation the panel will spend 20 minutes asking questions. You will be expected to answer based on the information you provided in your application form, presentation and the response to feedback.
After your interview
The panellists will individually score your application and these will be averaged for your overall interview score. This score will supersede the one you received from initial assessment unless stated otherwise in the competition brief. We will notify you whether you have been successful or not by email and you will receive feedback on your interview within a week of notification.
1. Project details
This section provides background for your application and is not scored.
Application team
Decide which organisations will work with you on your project and invite people from those organisations to help complete the application.
The lead applicant must complete their survey to submit the application.
Application details The lead applicant must complete this section. Give your project’s title, start date and duration.
Research category
Select the type of research you will undertake.
Project summary
Describe your project briefly and be clear about what makes it innovative. We use this section to assign the right experts to assess your application.
Your answer can be up to 400 words long.
Public description
Describe your project in detail and in a way that you are happy to see published. Do not include any commercially sensitive information. If we award your project funding, we will publish this description. This could happen before you start your project.
Your answer can be up to 400 words long.
Scope
Describe how your project fits the scope of the competition. If your project is not in scope it will not be sent for assessment. We will tell you the reason why.
Your answer can be up to 400 words long.2. Application questions
The assessors will score all your answers apart from question 1 and 2. You will receive feedback for each scored question. Find out more about how our assessors assess and how we select applications for funding.
You must answer all questions. Your answer to each question can be up to 400 words long. Do not include any website addresses (URLs) in your answers.
Question 1. Applicant location (not scored)
You must state the name and full registered address of your organisation and any partners or subcontractors working on your project.
We are collecting this information to understand the geographical location of all applicants.
Question 2. Animal Testing (not scored)
Will your project involve any trials involving animals or animal testing?
You must select one option:
- Yes
- No
We will only support innovation projects conducted to the highest standards of animal welfare.
Further information for proposals involving animal testing is available at the UKRI Good Research Hub and NC3R’s animal welfare guidance.
Question 3. Health need or challenge
What is the health need, technology challenge, business or market opportunity behind your innovation?
Explain:
- the health challenge this project addresses and the impact your solution will have
- how your solution compares to the current gold standard
- whether you have identified any similar innovation and its current limitations, including those close to market or in development
- any work you have already done to respond to this need, for example, if the project focuses on developing an existing capability or building a new one
- the wider economic, social, environmental, cultural or political challenges which are influential in creating the opportunity, such as incoming regulations and using our Horizons tool if appropriate
Provide:
- evidence that the health or healthcare challenge is real and define the market, both nationally and internationally, that will generate demand for your proposed solution
- any input you have received from healthcare professionals, patients, potential partners or representatives of the onward supply chain
Question 4. Approach and innovation
What is innovative about your idea from a commercial, scientific and technical perspective?
Explain:
- how you will respond to the healthcare need, challenge or opportunity identified
- what is innovative about your approach, how does this address the health or healthcare challenge in a novel way
- how this innovation will fit into the current standard of care, will the innovation focus on existing technologies in new areas, the development of new technologies for existing areas or a totally disruptive approach
- the technical and commercial benefits and shortcomings of your approach
- the safety and performance characteristics by outlining the target product profile (TPP) if applicable
Question 5. Scientific or Technical Evidence
What is the underpinning scientific evidence to support your solution?
Detail all relevant prior experimental or technical evidence and explain how this links to the proposed study. Include any preclinical or clinical work conducted to date and the outcomes.
You must submit one appendix to support your answer. It can include diagrams and charts. It must be a PDF and can be up to 4 A4 pages long and no larger than 10mb in size. The font must be legible at 100% zoom.
Question 6. Team and resources
Does the team have the right skills, experience and access to facilities, to deliver your project and exploit it?
Explain:
- the roles, skills and experience of all members of the project team, including collaborators and subcontractors
- the resources, equipment and facilities needed for the project and how you will access them
- if your project is collaborative, the current relationships between project partners and how these will change as a result of the project
- any roles you will need to recruit for
- how your project supports or builds on the existing UK supply chain and addresses end user needs
- how the work is being conducted internally where possible and, if subcontractors are being used, there is adequate justification for the choice made
- the details of any vital external parties, including subcontractors, who you will need to work with to successfully carry out the project
- how your project has access to the appropriate facilities, resources, tools, equipment and human capability
All subcontractor costs must be justified and appropriate to the total project costs.
Extenuating circumstances where overseas work may be allowable, include but are not limited to clinical trials in a specific patient population. You must provide justification for any overseas work by email to support@iuk.ukri.org at least 10 working days before the competition closes. Innovate UK will decide whether to approve your request via email.
If you are planning to use subcontractors outside the UK then you must provide evidence that no UK alternative exists and strong justification to support your choice of non-UK contractor.
The application assessors will also be asked to judge whether you have sufficiently made a case for the use of overseas subcontractors.
You can submit one appendix, with a short summary of the main people working on the project to support your answer. It must be a PDF, up to 4 A4 pages long and no larger than 10MB in size. The font must be legible at 100% zoom.
Question 7. Technical approach and project management
What technical approach will be adopted and how will your project be managed?
Please provide an overview of the technical approach including the main objectives of the work with enough detail for the assessors to understand tasks involved and resources required.
Describe:
- the current status of your innovation and where you expect to be at the end of your project
- the stages of your project (the work packages) and link the main areas of work together with their resource and management requirements
- key milestones and any stage gates
- how the method and technical approach is appropriate to the needs of the project and the timescale
- how any study design is robust and that key milestone timings are realistic
- your resources and capability to undertake the project
- clear management reporting lines
If relevant, compare and contrast alternative R&D strategies and describe why your proposed approach will offer the best outcome.
You must provide justification for the use of animal or human subjects and the numbers of animals and samples to be tested.
You must submit a project plan or Gantt chart as an appendix to support your answer. You can also include a study design, protocol or approach. It must be a PDF, up to 4 A4 pages long and no larger than 10MB in size. The font must be legible at 100% zoom.
Question 8. Intellectual Property and Freedom to operate (FTO)
Do you have freedom to operate?
Describe:
- any existing intellectual property (IP) which may affect, or which is relevant to, project delivery and exploitation
- the current state of IP ownership and, where necessary, how rights have been assigned
- your freedom to operate and who conducted any FTO analysis, if applicable
- your strategy for protecting the knowledge resulting from your project if it is a collaborative project and how will you assign IP rights to project partners
- any IP that you expect to be generated as a result of your project, and who will own it
- where IP is limited for your project what strategies will be used to stop exploitation by external parties
You must provide evidence that you have freedom to operate and that you can work without infringing other patents, for example by summarising the results of patent searches.
Question 9. Outcomes and route to market
How are you going to grow your business and increase long term productivity as a result of the project?
Explain:
- your current position in the markets and supply or value chains outlined, and whether you will be extending or establishing your market position
- your target customers or end users, and the value to them, for example, why they would use or buy your product
- your route to market
- how you are going to profit from the innovation, including increased revenues or cost reduction
- how the innovation will affect your productivity and growth, in both the short and the long term
- how you will protect and exploit the outputs of the project, for example through know-how, patenting, designs or changes to your business model
- your strategy for targeting the other markets you have identified during or after the project
If there is any research organisation activity in the project, describe:
- your plans to spread the project’s research outputs over a reasonable timescale
- how you expect to use the results generated from the project in further research activities
Question 10. Technical, commercial and environmental risks
Innovate UK recognises that projects of this type are risky, we expect that your project has adequate arrangements for managing these risks.
What are the technical, commercial and environmental risks to project success?
Explain:
- your project’s risk management strategy
- the main risks and uncertainties of your project and provide a detailed risk analysis for your project’s content and approach
- the technical (including regulatory), commercial, managerial and environmental risks as well as other uncertainties, such as ethical issues associated with your project
- the potential impact of these risks and how your project would mitigate them
- the project management tools and mechanisms that will be used to minimise operational risk
You must submit a risk register as an appendix where possible to support your answer. It must be a PDF and can be up to 2 A4 pages long and up to 10 MB in size. The font must be legible at 100% zoom.
Question 11. Resources required
What are the resources required to deliver your project and how much will they cost?
You must:
- provide justification of the breakdown of your costs, for example, any quotations you have received
- include all internal and external costs for your project which must be consistent with the category of R&D being undertaken
- describe how funding will be available to cover cash flow pending quarterly reimbursement of costs from Innovate UK
- explain your eligible project costs, from each of the project partners and the level of funding required
- explain the resources required to carry out your project including materials, capital, equipment and people
This information should complement the financial summary table in the application form.
Question 12. Financial support and added value
How will this public funding help you to accelerate or enhance your approach to developing your project towards commercialisation? What impact would this award have on the organisations involved?
Explain:
- what advantages public funding would offer your project, for example, appeal to investors, more partners, reduced risk or a faster route to market
- the likely impact of the project outcomes on the organisations involved
- what other routes of investment or means of support you have already approached and why they were not suitable
- how any existing or potential investment or support will be used in conjunction with the grant funding
- what your project would look like without public funding
- how this project would change the R&D activities of all the organisations involved
- justify any claims for activity performed by senior and C-suite people, and why this activity could not be performed by lower cost members of staff and clarify the value of this activity to the project outcomes
3. Finances
Each organisation in your project must complete their own project costs, organisation details and funding details in the application.
Academic institutions must complete and upload a Je-S form.
For full details on what costs you can claim see our project costs guidance. You can also view our Application Finances video.4. Project Impact
This section is not scored but will provide background to your project.
Each partner must complete the Project Impact questions before being able to submit the application.
More information can be found in our Project Impact guidance and by viewing our Impact Management Framework video.Background and further information
The Transforming Cancer Therapeutics programme will build on the success of the Vaccines Taskforce created by the UK Government. The Vaccines Taskforce set a clear and specific task for industry to come together with academics to accelerate the development of novel and vital therapies. For paediatric and young persons' (0-24 years) cancers, more research is needed to develop new, more-effective, and safer treatments that are suitable for these patient populations.
Taking learnings from that process and applying them to the critical healthcare missions of the day will help accelerate innovation for cancer therapeutics and meet growing global demand. The global market is expected to rise to £5.7 billion for immuno-oncology assays in 2026, £160 billion for oncology drugs and £73 billion for immune-oncology drugs in 2027.
The strategic value of these assets to stimulate UK commercial growth and innovation, has been highlighted in recent Government policies and strategies.
Including:
- Life Sciences Vision
- Innovate UK Future Economy Plan for Action
- Government to use Vaccine Taskforce model to tackle health challenges
- Build Back Better: our plan for growth
Data Sharing
This competition is operated by Innovate UK.
Innovate UK is directly accountable to you for its holding and processing of your information, including any personal data and confidential information. Data is held in accordance with our own policies. Accordingly, Innovate UK will be data controllers for personal data submitted during the application.
Innovate UK’s Privacy Policy is accessible here.
Innovate UK complies with the requirements of UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, and is committed to upholding data protection legislation, and protecting your information in accordance with data protection principles.
The Information Commissioner’s Office also has a useful guide for organisations, which outlines the data protection principles.
Find a project partner
If you want help to find a project partner, contact Innovate UK KTN.
Support for SMEs from Innovate UK EDGE
These specialists focus on growing innovative businesses and ensuring that projects contribute to their growth. Working one-to-one, they can help you to identify your best strategy and harness world-class resources to grow and achieve scale.
We encourage you to engage with Innovate UK EDGE, delivered by a knowledgeable and objective specialist near you.Assessment
Your application will be reviewed by up to 5 independent assessors based on the content of your application and their skills or expertise relevant to your project. All of the scores awarded will count towards the total score used to make the funding decision unless you are notified otherwise.
You can find out more about our assessment process in the General Guidance.
Your submitted application will be assessed against these criteria.
Next steps
If you are successful with this application, you will be asked to set up your project.
You must follow the unique link embedded in your email notification. This takes you to your Innovation Funding Service (IFS) Set Up portal, the tool that Innovate UK uses to gather necessary information before we can allow your project to begin.
You will need to provide:
- the name and contact details of your project manager and project finance lead
- a redacted copy of your bank details
- a collaboration agreement, if applicable
- an exploitation plan
In order for us to process your claims, you must make sure you have a valid UK business bank account. It can take several weeks for a new account to be created if required. We recommend starting this process as early as possible to avoid any delays to your project start date.
The bank account which grant is to be paid into must:
- be a business account in the same name as the organisation listed in IFS
- be from a UK bank regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA)
- have a cheque and credit clearing facility
Online accounts are eligible as long as they meet the above criteria.
Innovate UK will accept most banking societies apart from:
- Viva Wallet
- Intesa Sanpaolo
- Equals Money UK Limited
If you have any doubts that your bank account will not meet Innovate UK's funding criteria, you can use the sort code checker. If you input the sort code and find a tick next to the ‘BACS Direct Credit payments can be sent to this sort code’, this will give you an indication that the bank account you hold is acceptable.
Finance checks
We will carry out checks to make sure you are an established company with access to the funds necessary to complete the project.
You must check your IFS portal regularly and respond to any requests we have sent for additional information to avoid any delays.
Failure to complete project setup may result in your grant offer being withdrawn.
Your Grant offer letter (GOL)
Once you have successfully completed project setup, we will issue your GOL.
The GOL will be made available on your IFS portal. You will need to sign and upload this for us to approve. Once approved we will send you an email with permission to start your project on your confirmed start date.
You must not start your project before the date stated on your email and GOL. Any costs incurred before your agreed start date cannot be claimed as part of your grant.
If your GOL is approved on or before the fifteenth of the month it will be dated from the first of that month. If your GOL is approved after the fifteenth, it will be dated the first of the next month.
If your application is unsuccessful
If you are unsuccessful with your application this time, you can view feedback from the assessors. This will be available to you on your IFS portal following notification.
Sometimes your application will have scored well, and you will receive positive comments from the assessors. You may be unsuccessful as your average score was not above the funding threshold or your project has not been selected under the portfolio approach if this is applied for this competition.Contact us
Our phone lines are open from 9am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).
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