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
Resilient economy and security through ecosystem transitions grants
Apply for funding for research projects under the NERC-Defra co-funded Resilient Economy and Security through Ecosystem Transitions (RESET) programme. Projects will improve understanding on how, when and why ecosystems transition, reorganise or collapse, to sustain functions, strengthen economic prosperity, societal resilience and national security.
Doctoral focal award: UKRI venture doctorates: outline stage
Apply for funding to deliver venture doctoral focal awards, offering entrepreneurship-focused doctoral training. Applications can be led by eligible UKRI organisations or organisations such as businesses or social enterprises accepted for non-standard eligibility.
Let's Celebrate Towns 2026
A nationwide competition recognising communities driving stronger, more vibrant local economies across the UK, offering grant funding for winning towns to put toward a community project or initiative.
Digital Twin Industry Challenge Led Accelerator
Nine-month accelerator programme for UK technology SMEs to develop digital twin solutions for industry challenges in maritime, aerospace, and defence sectors.
Trust and confidence in policing: Research & Innovation Consortium
Apply for funding to develop and test dynamic tools and approaches to measure public trust and confidence in policing. The consortium will develop methods to capture the views of the wider community, underrepresented groups, groups who are a priority for policing and their partners, with particular focus on the voices of under-18s and victims and survivors of violence against women and girls.
Funding opportunity: High performance compute resources for EPSRC communities
Apply for funding to provide high-performance compute resource for engineering and physical sciences research communities. EPSRC will invest in compute resources that deliver either CPU resources that meet an identified need of EPSRC compute user communities or enable the EPSRC community to fully exploit GPU architectures.
Pre-announcement: Trust and confidence in policing: R&I Consortium
Apply for funding to develop and test dynamic tools and approaches to measure public trust and confidence in policing. The consortium will develop methods to capture the views of the wider community, underrepresented groups, and groups who are a priority for policing and their partners, with a particular focus on the voices of under-18s and victims and survivors of violence against women and girls.
National Materials Innovation Programme: CR&D Rd1
UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £12 million for collaborative industrial research to speed the translation of advanced materials innovations in three prioritised high growth themes and one strategic opportunity theme.
Funding opportunity: Advancing innovation in accelerated cancer diagnosis
Innovate UK, on behalf of the OLS Cancer Healthcare Goals programme, will invest up to £25.4 million to support the clinical validation and evaluation of early cancer diagnostic technologies and devices.
Funding opportunity: CoSTAR Showcase Labs: Createch infrastructure and commercialisation
Join the Convergent Screen Technologies and performance in Realtime (CoSTAR) Network and host national research and development (R&D) infrastructure for the creative sector to reduce barriers to creative businesses’ technology adoption, improve commercialisation support, and drive scale up and investment.
Funding opportunity: CoSTAR Satellite Labs: Accessible creative R&D infrastructure
Join the Convergent Screen Technologies and performance in Realtime (CoSTAR) Network and host national research and development (R&D) infrastructure for the creative sector to reduce barriers to creative businesses’ technology adoption, improve commercialisation support, and drive scale up and investment.
Pre-announcement: Expanding access to creative sector R&D infrastructure
Join the convergent screen technologies and performance in realtime (CoSTAR) Network and host national R&D infrastructure for the creative sector. Funding aims to reduce barriers to creative businesses' technology adoption, improve commercialisation support for creative technology businesses, and drive scale up and investment.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about business grants in Northern Ireland