Funding FAQs

At a project level the grant sought must be 60% or less of the total overall eligible costs of the project. The maximum funding rates individual organisations can claim will depend on the size and type of your organisation.

• A large company can claim up to 50% of their eligible costs
• A medium sized company can claim up to 60% of their eligible costs
• A small company can claim up to 70% of their eligible costs
• A research institution can claim up 100% of their eligible costs

Depending on the make-up of the consortium it may not be possible to claim the maximum allowable costs for each individual organisation. The consortium should decide how costs for individual organisations are managed to comply with the 60% grant cap on total eligible project costs.

The funding rates are a maximum rate, the funding you request should be the minimum amount to make your project viable. This is something DBT will review as part of their value for money assessment.

If you have submitted an EOI to the June or July EOI competitions, the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) has written to the lead applicant named on the application. If you have registered for the August EOI competition and provided contact details, you will be contacted directly by Innovate UK (IUK). If you believe you have not received this communication, please email competitions@ati.org.uk.

The risk that the funding cap could change was signposted in the EOI competition brief for June, July and August EOIs.

If your project is not impacted by the cap you will just be able to proceed as normal with your application.

If you are impacted you will have the option to:

1. agree amongst your programme partners how to adjust the funding rates to achieve the cap before Full Stage submission,
2. discuss with the ATI if you need to change the work distribution to agree it does not fundamentally change the project scope and benefits as presented
3. withdraw your project and submit to a later EOI to allow for scope or consortium changes

No. Our correspondence to the lead applicant has set out the options available to you if you have already been successful for Batch 38 or are currently under assessment.

You can agree across your consortium how to achieve the new funding cap before submission.  If that is not possible, you can continue with submitting your application and you will have the option to:

1. agree amongst your programme partners how to adjust the funding rates to achieve the cap before FSA submission,
2. discuss with the ATI if you need to change the work distribution to agree it does not fundamentally change the project scope and benefits.

No, the change will only apply from Batch 38 onwards.

No, capital infrastructure projects remain with a grant funding cap of up to 50% of total eligible project costs, with the same caveats for research organisations or academic institutions.

The funding rates are a maximum rate, the funding you request should be the minimum amount to make your project viable. This is something DBT will review as part of their value for money assessment.

While this funding rate offers better value for money, it also acted as a disincentive to build large collaborations, especially with smaller businesses and universities.  The new 60% cap achieves a better balance. We will review the funding cap from time to time to assess how it is influencing the overall impact of the Programme.

The ATI Programme partners continually review the programme as part of a continuous improvement process. This is to ensure that it delivers benefits for the UK and represents a balanced portfolio of organisations and technologies against the UK aerospace strategy.

Changes to Industrial Contributions took effect in January 2023. Please click here for more information.

Applicants who are successful at EOI stage will be invited to apply to the full stage competition. The schedule for competition can be found on the Funding page. Additional EOI and FSA dates will be announced soon, but we anticipate them broadly following the same drumbeat.

General funding eligibility criteria remains the same, other than the cap on grant funding as discussed in the Q&A above. The ATI Programme is open to all UK-based companies seeking to co-invest in mid-stage technology that has a route to market and is aligned to the UK aerospace technology strategy.

The Programme works to support collaborative R&D with multiple partners in universities, Catapults and industry, including Primes and SMEs. Our objective is to co-invest in only the best projects – those that will deliver the best overall return, including our assessment of its commercial route to market.

The collaboration rules are stated in the eligibility section of the guidance for each funding opportunity. This section outlines the different roles of organisations who intend to work collaboratively in completing an application and setting up a project on the service.

Yes. Applications to all EOIs and full stage will be assessed against the ATI’s new Technology Strategy Destination Zero published in April 2022.

The budget for the ATI Programme from FY25/26 to FY29/30 is £975m. allocated at £195m in each of the five years. Future budgets will be confirmed in subsequent spending reviews. This represents the total grant funding available from government which is subject to contribution from project applicants as determined by the funding rates and eligibility.

For guidance on Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) and the ATI Programme, please click here.

Please visit the ATI Hub where you can engage with the ATI and connect and collaborate with other projects.

You can submit a draft of your project proposal via EOI draft submission form.

Please contact competitions@ati.org.uk and a member of our funding team will respond to your enquiry.

First read the Application Guidance available on the UKRI website. Please contact support@iuk.ukri.org and a member of the team will answer your question.

All applicants (including project partners) to an ATI Programme funding competition must sign the ATI’s Framework Agreement before full stage application, but we encourage applicants to do this before EOI if possible. Industrial partners should read the Guide to Industrial Contributions. All applicants should read the Application Guidance available on the UKRI website.

Ensure all project partners within the consortium have signed the ATI’s Framework Agreement. Lead partners should complete the Lead Partner Contact Form and send to the ATI.