Business Grants in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland offers unique business funding opportunities through Invest NI, local councils, and cross-border programmes with the Republic of Ireland. Belfast and other NI businesses can access support for innovation, exports, and growth.
Invest NI Funding
Invest Northern Ireland is the main business development agency for NI. They provide grants, loans, and support for businesses looking to grow, innovate, or export. Their programmes cover R&D, capital investment, skills development, and market entry.
Local Council Support
Northern Ireland's 11 councils offer their own business support programmes. Belfast City Council, Derry City and Strabane, and other councils run grant schemes for local businesses, particularly SMEs and startups.
Cross-Border Programmes
NI businesses can also access cross-border funding programmes with the Republic of Ireland and EU-funded initiatives. InterTradeIreland supports cross-border trade and innovation projects.
Northern Ireland Business Grants
225 grants found
Unlocking advanced capabilities in conservation and heritage science
Apply for funding to strengthen conservation and heritage science infrastructure by building sustainable national capability, improving access to nationally significant facilities and addressing unmet user demand. Projects should expand collaboration with industry to accelerate technology development, commercialisation and knowledge exchange.
Discover Creative Careers Funding
Grants of up to £4,000 to deliver local activities that break down barriers to the creative industries and create opportunities for underserved young people in the community.
Wise Music Foundation Grant
Financial support for people experiencing hardship, distress and illness, with a focus on children, the homeless and people living in poverty, as well as supporting a broad range of domestic and international charitable causes.
British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme
A scheme that aims to reduce electricity costs by up to £40 per megawatt hour for eligible manufacturers in the growth sectors (the ‘IS-8’) and foundational manufacturing industries. It exempts eligible businesses from paying indirect costs of the renewables obligation, capacity market, and feed-in tariff.
UK-Germany Bilateral Collaborative R&D: Round 5
Innovate UK and BMWE will invest up to £2.4 million in business-led collaborative research and development projects focused on industrial research, specifically in Clean Energy, Life Sciences, or Engineering Biology. UK registered SMEs must collaborate with at least one German SME applying under the German ZIM programme.
Commercialising Knowledge Assets Fund (CKAF) Winter
Grants to move viable public sector knowledge assets towards commercial readiness.
Attendance and engagement at UK sporting, cultural and heritage sites
Apply for funding to research the development of novel data-intensive approaches for capturing engagement data from unticketed cultural, heritage, and sporting events, activities and locations, demonstrated through a deployable tool in at least one Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) sector.
Funding opportunity: Long-term cultural and sporting events legacy
Apply for funding to research the long-term impact and legacy of major sporting and cultural events in the UK, focusing on running a live experimental evaluation of a major event that fills gaps in existing methodologies.
UKRI Enabling AI adoption across science and engineering
Apply for funding for ambitious and exploratory projects bringing together AI and domain expertise. Projects will have the potential to unlock new opportunities for applying artificial intelligence (AI) to important research challenges in priority science and engineering disciplines.
Sustainable Medicines Manufacturing Innovation: CR&D round 2
Invest support for the development and adoption of sustainable technologies for the manufacturing of medicines.
Growth Cohorts: next-gen low carbon concrete cohort entry round 2
UK registered businesses can apply to join a cohort of ambitious businesses to develop solutions to decarbonise concrete and access funding and sector specific support to develop and deliver innovation and growth plans.
Full ADOPT grant: round 10
Farming, growing or forestry businesses based in England can apply for a share of up to £5 million for on-farm trial and demonstration projects, to improve adoption of new ideas or solutions in the agricultural sector. This is an Accelerating Development of Practices and Technologies (ADOPT) grant.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about business grants in Northern Ireland