Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many applications for Innovate UK Smart Grants for businesses in Weaver Vale constituency have been rejected since August 2020; and what the primary reason was for each of those rejections.

Innovate UK Smart grants are an opportunity for UK registered organisations to apply for a share of up to £25 million from Innovate UK (part of UK Research and Innovation, UKRI) to deliver disruptive R&D innovations that can significantly impact the UK economy.

The August 2020 competition for Innovate UK Smart Grants opened to applications on 28^th August and closed to applications on 25^th November.

Applicants are not required to include their postcode until after an offer is made. Identification of applications from the Weaver Vale has been undertaken based on postcode information voluntarily provided by applicants for the organisations’ registered addresses and/or the work location addresses. 17 applications involving one or more applicants in the Weaver Vale constituency have been identified.

Applications that do not fulfil the competition criteria are classed as ineligible and many applicants with ineligible applications will have been informed of this already. As of 30^th November, 3 of these applications are ineligible. Two of the applications exceed the allowed project costs for the project duration and the other is a project over 18 months in duration that does not fulfil the need to be a collaborative project. These eligibility criteria are applied transparently and equally to all applications.

This competition will go into the assessment phase shortly with the funding decisions expected in February 2021.