The starting point is to consider your medium-term investment plans. This may be in terms of:

• Capital expenditure: plant and machinery, fixtures and fittings, land and buildings – see note 1
• Job creation or safeguarding: either an increase to UK headcount or the safeguarding of UK jobs that would otherwise be lost – see note 1
  
• Research and development: the development of new products or services, either on your own or in collaboration with third parties – see note 2
• Business improvements: energy efficiency, carbon footprint reduction etc.
• Incremental staff training and development: upskilling of existing or new staff 

Support for a project could come from a number of different sources depending on the nature and scale of the project. The largest funding sources are:

Regional programmes: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have separate programmes in place to support company investment.

Innovate UK: This is the Government’s principle grant funding mechanism for supporting R&D in the UK. Funding is usually available through competitive calls and the programme encourages collaboration. Specific programmes are also available for SMEs.

Horizon Europe: This is the largest funding programme for R&D and Innovation in Europe. It primarily supports collaborative projects across a wide range of sectors to address technological and societal challenges.

Regional aid can be granted in certain circumstances as a proportion of the costs needed for a new commercial project. Grant assistance can be available for small and medium sized companies throughout most of the UK whilst assistance to large companies is restricted to projects located in a designated assisted area location (see map).

For capital intensive projects the grant may be based on the capital expenditure, subject to value for money measures, linked to the number of jobs created or safeguarded as a result of the project. For a service sector project assistance may be available towards the salary cost of net new jobs to be created.

The grant budget is held by separate bodies located in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. All of the regions have a continuously open grant application process except for England, which is based around periodic funding rounds.