Another £3m for proof-of-concept funding in Scotland
The Scottish government has announced the allocations from its 2026–27 research commercialisation fund – 17 projects will share £2.92m in proof-of-concept funding.
The funding is intended to address “various aspects of the spinout process,” from developing prototype products to undertaking market analysis and pitching to investors.
This is the second year of the fund’s operation, after the Scottish spinouts progress report warned earlier this year that such funding is currently “lacking” in Scotland. The Scottish government has committed to launching a dedicated “Scottish innovation fund” focusing on university spinouts in conjunction with the Scottish National Investment Bank – this pledge was originally made in the 2023 innovation strategy, and was repeated in this year’s Programme for Government.
Projects funded this year include a low-cost environmental monitoring system at the University of St Andrews and a handheld chemical sensing device for the drinks industry at the University of Aberdeen.
The fund is divided into a £50,000 to £124,999 tier one, for early stage projects, and a £125,000 to £250,000 tier two for more developed projects. In this second year, projects that had been successful in tier one in 2025–26 were eligible to apply for tier two funding “providing they can evidence how the project has progressed and justify the need for further funding” – the University of Edinburgh’s human tissue engineering platform RIFLE has successfully gained further funding in this way.
Demand management measures were applied to the opportunity, due to the “expected high demand for funding,” in the form of institutional limits based on spinout track record. The chart below shows how funding was allocated across Scotland’s universities over the two years:
The Scottish government’s fund was not open to those receiving funding from UKRI’s own proof-of-concept fund, which opened in March with a total pot of £9m available.
Tony Hickson’s UK-wide review of university-investor relationships earlier this year called on UKRI to expand proof-of-concept funding to £100m annually, saying that the current funding landscape at the pre-incorporation stage was “incoherent and fragmented, with limited coordination between UKRI councils and charitable organisations.”
Hickson also suggested that UKRI consider a degree of formula-based proof-of-concept funding. UKRI’s response to the review committed to developing a “vision” which would include exploring the expansion of proof-of-concept and pre-seed funding.