Cyber security academic startup accelerator programme year nine: phase one

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will work with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) to invest up to £800,000 in innovative cyber security projects coming from an academic research base.

Description

The aim of this competition is to identify the most promising commercial opportunities in academia in respect to cyber security.

Your proposal must include the area of your research, the problem that you are solving and your proposed solution.

The Cyber Security Academic Startup Accelerator Programme (CyberASAP) is an 11 month programme.

This is phase 1 of a potential 2 phase competition.

Phase 1 will last up to four months, split into two stages:

• an initial two months for value proposition development activities, followed by a presentation to an independent judging panel who will select teams to go to stage 2
• a further two months for market validation activities

Phase 1 will determine the value of the idea and, if appropriate, identify the best commercial route to progress. The programme will be supported by industry experts, including some from cyber security.

This competition has two funding strands for entry:

Strand 1: Industry Challenge-Led strand with the following cross cutting challenges:

National and Emergency Service Infrastructure Security, including:

• energy, including networks
• transport
• telecoms

Operational and supply chain resilience, including:

• manufacturing
• agriculture
• public sector, including local government and healthcare

Harms, including:

• metaverse
• AI model security
• ransomware
• quantum

Dual Use, National Security, including:

• drones
• robotics
• IoT
• sensors

These lists are not exhaustive.

Strand 2: open strand

Note that although you can select the strand for your project, we will make the final decision which strand is the most appropriate for your application.

In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process. This competition has a funding limit, so we may not be able to fund all the proposed projects. It may be the case that your project scores highly but we are still unable to fund it.

This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated in this Innovate UK competition brief. We cannot guarantee other government or third party sites will always show the correct competition information.

Funding type

Grant

Project size

Your project’s total eligible costs must be between £5,000 and £32,000.

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 making reasonable adjustments, for people who have a disability or a long-term condition and face barriers applying to us.

You can contact us at any time to ask for guidance.

We recommend you contact us at least 10 working days before this competition’s closing date to allow us to put the most suitable support in place. The support we can provide may be limited if you contact us close to the competition deadline.

You can contact Innovate UK by email or call 0300 321 4357. Phone lines are open from 9am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm UK time, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).