News story: Women in Innovation: new support announced

Ahead of International Women’s Day tomorrow, Innovate UK has announced that it will run a second phase of its Women in Innovation awards.

The programme, which will launch later this year, will consist of a funding competition and support package to encourage more female-led innovation.

Supporting government’s Industrial Strategy

The second Women in Innovation competition will seek ideas that address the 4 grand challenges posed by government’s Industrial Strategy. These are:

• AI and the data economy
• clean growth
• future of mobility
• ageing society

Find out more

About the programme and its success

The first Women in Innovation programme was launched in 2016, following research that found just 1 in 7 applications for Innovate UK funding came from women.

To address this, Innovate UK ran its first women-only competition. This provided £50,000 funding each for 15 female-led businesses plus mentoring. We have also run an entrepreneurial mission to Boston for 7 women in tech.

Since the programme launched there has been a 10 per cent increase in female registrations for Innovate UK support.

Helping more women achieve their business ambitions

Commenting on the announcing, Dr Ruth McKernan CBE, Chief Executive of Innovate UK, says:

It is fantastic that more women are coming to us for innovation funding and support, but we need to go further.

Our 2018 Women in Innovation programme is designed to help many more women achieve their business ambitions, drive UK growth and productivity, and harness the full talent pool.