Business Grants in North East England
The North East offers business funding through the North East Combined Authority, local councils, and the regional Growth Hub. The region is investing heavily in clean energy, advanced manufacturing, and digital sectors.
North East Combined Authority
The newly formed North East Mayoral Combined Authority is developing business support programmes across the region. They focus on growth sectors and creating quality employment opportunities.
Newcastle and Gateshead
Newcastle and Gateshead councils provide business support including grants for SMEs, startups, and specific sectors. The area's universities create additional innovation funding opportunities.
Wider Region Support
Sunderland, Durham, Northumberland, and Teesside each have their own grant schemes. The region's focus on clean energy and offshore wind creates sector-specific funding opportunities.
North East Business Grants
216 grants found
UKRI translation: MRC proof of concept: stage two
Apply for funding to develop and test novel therapeutics, medical devices, diagnostics and other interventions across any stage of the developmental pathway, from prototype development, through pre-clinical refinement, to early-phase clinical studies (up to phase 2a).
FOAK Builder: Programme Entry Expression of Interest
Support to develop a Climate Tech First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) project towards Final Investment Decision (FID). Selected companies receive expert advisory, technical assistance, mentoring, and upskilling support, with potential opportunity to apply for Phase 2 grant funding.
Funding opportunity: Expression of interest: First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) builder: programme entry
Expression of interest competition for UK-registered businesses to apply for support to develop a climate tech FOAK commercial project. Successful applicants could be invited to apply for a larger grant through FOAK builder phase two.
Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence 2027-2030 – invite only
Supports the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE) to conduct high-quality research that improves economic measurement, enhances key statistics production, modernises data collection, and assists the ONS in shaping global economic measurement standards.
Invite only: Precision prevention: biological mechanisms of response variation
Apply for funding to investigate why biomedical prevention interventions work differently across people. Projects must generate mechanistic evidence in humans by testing biomedical experimental interventions or challenges in pre-disease or early disease states, providing insight into how to improve the targeting and effectiveness of precision prevention strategies.
Large Grant full applications: November 2026 (invite only)
Funding to support innovative, large-scale and complex projects that tackle big science questions and have the potential to produce world-leading research.
Energy Resilience Accelerator – helping SMEs scale their resilience innovations
A programme designed to connect ambitious SMEs with industry partners (Centrica, NHS England, NESO, NGED, SSEN) to collaboratively develop trial proposals tackling pressing energy resilience challenges, with fully funded technical and business support and potential trial funding.
Transformative sustainable AI technologies
Apply for funding for projects focused on speculative and high-risk research with the potential to deliver high rewards and a step change in the sustainability of future AI systems. Projects should consider technological innovations across the AI stack.
Frontier AI: SME Champions, phase 1
Feasibility studies for frontier artificial intelligence, and machine learning technologies with a clear route to defensible scale-up.
Teacher Development Fund
Supports schools and arts organisations working in equal partnership to deliver professional learning for teachers, enabling arts-based approaches that create equitable classrooms for primary-age children.
Second Act Entrepreneur Fund
A grant funding and mentorship initiative aimed at supporting UK business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs aged 40 and over to start or grow their business.
Exploring the frontiers of environmental research 2026
Apply for funding to pursue truly novel curiosity-driven environmental research that is at an early stage of development and has the potential to be transformative. Projects should focus on preliminary investigation that may inform future activities and applicants should articulate the potential for impact of the project outcomes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about business grants in North East