Securing Innovation Grants: The Ultimate Checklist

Innovation grants can be an incredibly important source of income but at the application stage, nothing is guaranteed. If you’re looking at innovation grants for your business and keen to give yourself the best possible chance of success then this is the ultimate checklist to work through.

SPRK Capitals Innovation Grant Checklist

• Make sure your application fits the scope. Certain innovation grants are designed to fund certain industries or types of projects or R&D. The first, essential step, towards securing the funding that you need is going to be making sure that your project – and application – fit the scope.
• Get very clear on the project definition. Your business is unlikely to win any innovation grants for projects that are vague or poorly defined. That’s why it’s so essential to be clear about milestones, tasks, deliverables, resources and budgetary requirements, among many other aspects of the project definition.
• Is your project actually innovative? As the name suggests, innovation grants are designed to fund innovation i.e. something that is both game changing and commercially viable. Are you taking risks and advancing the cutting edge?
• Strong market awareness. Those who decide whether or not to award innovation grants will be looking to support projects where there is a clear understanding of the market opportunity that is being addressed by the innovation. This means showing that you have researched and understood the commercialisation opportunities in what you’re doing, as well as the role that your competitors have to play.
• How will you make money from this innovation further down the line? Robust financial forecasts are an essential part of the process of successful applications for innovation grants. Letters of interest can also be really helpful. Overall, you’re looking to show how there is money to be made – and a clear route to commercialisation – for whatever it is that you’re innovating. Managing cash flow and driving change can be eased with additional funding options such as grant advance loans.
• Showing project impacts. Your grant proposal will need to go into the detail of the impacts that your innovation project is going to achieve. That might be, for example, meeting government priorities or positively affecting the national economy through the revenues that you’ll be able to generate.
• Who is working on the project? Identifying the project team is another key part of securing innovation grants – in fact, the people who are involved can be one of the most vital elements. This means covering all the human resources that the project is going to need, as well as identifying any external or expert support that will be required.
• What happens to the intellectual property? From patents to copyright, protecting the intellectual property of the innovation is something you need to cover off in the application.
• What are the costs involved? This is an incredibly important part of the application and needs to be detailed and precise. Do the costs come within the scope of the grant? Can you provide evidence that the project will deliver value for money?
• What are the risks? Being able to identify and mitigate the risks of a project shows that you have a full understanding of where the project sits and how to give it the best possible chance of success.

Experts in Grants and Funding

If you’re applying for innovation grants, gathering your internal information to have an effective application is a must. At SPRK Capital, we pride ourselves on the ability of our trusted advisors. Furthermore, our grant advance funding options can support your company with access to capital to fund your innovation spend. Get in touch today and find out how we can help your business reach it’s goals.