Grant Advisory
Empowering the growth of your R&D and innovation strategies.
An innovation project is:
‘A project going beyond the state of the art, demonstrating a real breakthrough, but not going off into science fiction’
Projects should move forward along the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) scale — typically advancing 1 TRL level per year.
X Projects that apply existing, widely accessible knowledge or technology in standard ways — such as adapting off-the-shelf solutions or repeating well-known processes.
X Projects that may lead to significant market impact but don’t involve a technological advance. Market potential alone isn’t enough.
X Costs that fall outside the eligible window — for example, anything incurred before the project starts (like baseline research or feasibility studies), or after the technical work is complete (such as marketing, sales, or commercialisation activities)
✓ Projects that involve your technical or R&D team doing something genuinely new — creating a game-changing product, process, or service that advances the current state of the art.
✓ Activities carried out during the core phase of the project, where technological uncertainties are being resolved. This includes direct R&D and certain indirect support functions.
✓ In short:Funding is aimed at the technical problem-solving stage — where innovation is happening — not the preparatory or promotional stages.
In the context of UK and European grants, TRL stands for Technology Readiness Level. It is a scale originally developed by NASA and now widely adopted in grant frameworks to measure the maturity of a technology, from early research to commercial deployment.
The TRL scale typically runs from 1 to 9:
In short: TRLs provide a common language for funders, researchers, and businesses to understand how “ready” a technology is, and to design funding programmes that fit different stages of innovation.
Product Innovation
Process Innovation
Business Model Innovation
Service Innovation
Computing Innovation
Technology Innovation
Digital Innovation
Incremental Innovation
Disruptive Innovation
Sustainable Innovation
Social Innovation
Open Innovation
The key to a successful grant application is through a clear and concise description of your project, the technical advancements it will make, and how it meets a market or sector demand.
To help you achieve this, we first need to understand the facts of your project. That’s why we start with a discussion about your innovation R&D plans with one of our Grant Funding Managers.
✓ Following this meeting and signing an agreement, ABGi will work with you to prepare the various elements of the application:
✓ Detailed responses to core questions from the grant provider
✓ Financial projection of project costs, justifying value for money
✓ Realistic project plan to guide you from start to finish
Supporting appendix documents where required
