Grants and Funding opportunities for SMEs and start-ups in 2022

Over the last couple of years, the Covid pandemic has shown us how quickly the world changes. This has also included the business world that has had to adapt to overcome unforeseen challenges. However, these changes have also afforded opportunities for new ways of thinking and conducting business. Moving into 2022, Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) and Start-ups can expect to benefit from countries wanting to lead the recovery from the impacts of Covid-19 into the new world post-pandemic. Let’s take a look at the grants and funding opportunities available for SMEs and start-ups in the year ahead.

Horizon Europe

Horizon Europe is a research and initiative funding programme focussed to run until 2027. The initiative, designed to succeed the Horizon 2020 programme, with a budget of €95.5 billion aims to advance economic and research priorities. Garret Murray, the national director for Horizon 2020 at Enterprise Ireland, stated last year that its objective is to get SMEs, larger companies and researchers in collaboration to achieve more than possible than working disparately. Crucially, he remarked that the initiative hopes to ensure smaller projects receive the funding they need early enough and to the extent they should, underscoring new opportunities for these enterprises.

The European Innovation Council (EIC), which ran as a pilot in the last two years of Horizon 2020, is a new element that SMEs and start-ups should also be keenly interested in. With a budget of €10.1 billion, the EIC aims to increase the number of start-ups to get to the market before international competition. A lack of early stage funding has been identified as the main factor allowing start-ups in the US and China to take the lead over European numbers. The idea is to support game-changing innovations at all stages from research to financing of start-ups and SMEs.

UK Smart Grants

In the UK, the Smart Grants funding programme opened for applications on 17th of January and remains open until the 13th of April. This is an excellent funding opportunity for SMEs and start-ups, with the programme willing to invest up to £25 million in the most radical and commercially viable or disruptive ideas. In the 2021 spending review, the Smart Grants funding programme received an uplift in funding, promising better funding opportunities for smaller enterprises. The programme looks to provide funding for technology ventures from any area of research applied to any part of the economy, including but not exclusive to; net zero, health and wellbeing, technologies, as well as the arts, design, and media.

Small and medium enterprises and start-ups should seriously consider the assistance of these funding initiatives opening in 2022 and the possibilities they hold in leading the way forward for technology and research.

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Links and Further Reading

Apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk. n.d. Competition overview - Innovate UK Smart Grants: January 2022 - Innovation Funding Service. [online] Available at: https://apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk/competition/1087/overview#:~:text=
Funding%20competition%20Innovate%20UK%20Smart,of%20UK%20Research%20and%20Innovation [Accessed 9 February 2022].

European Commission - European Commission. n.d. Horizon Europe. [online] Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/info/research-and-innovation/funding/funding-opportunities/funding-programmes-and-open-calls/horizon-europe_en [Accessed 9 February 2022].

Rothery, G., 2021. How SMEs could benefit from Horizon Europe. [online] Thetimes.co.uk. Available at: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-smes-could-benefit-from-horizon-europe-5cx5ncl9d [Accessed 9 February 2022].

Ukri.org. 2022. Horizon Europe: help for UK applicants. [online] Available at: https://www.ukri.org/apply-for-funding/horizon-europe/ [Accessed 9 February 2022].