Funder: UK Research and Innovation
Due Dates: October 28, 2026 (UKRI closing date) | November 4, 2026, 11:00am UK time (Competition closes, Innovation Funding Service)
Funding Amounts: Up to £25.4 million total; £1.5 million–£4 million eligible project costs over 24–36 months; grant rates depend on activity and organisation
Summary: Supports collaborative clinical validation and evaluation of early cancer diagnostic technologies and devices, particularly for less common cancers.
Key Information: Collaborations must include a UK-registered SME claiming funding and a practising clinician, clinical academic or clinical delivery team.
Description
Innovate UK delivers this competition on behalf of the Office for Life Sciences’ Cancer Healthcare Goals programme. It funds collaborative research and development to accelerate earlier cancer detection and diagnosis, generating evidence for regulatory approval and future NHS adoption. Projects must demonstrate potential for clinical and health economic impact through developing, validating or evaluating diagnostic technologies or approaches.
Supported activities include clinical validation studies, early-phase clinical trials, safety and efficacy testing, technology demonstrations, regulatory planning and product development. Themes include next-generation diagnostics, improved patient access and multi-modal risk assessment combining factors such as genomics, imaging and biomarkers. Less common cancers are particularly encouraged: cancers outside breast, prostate, lung and bowel cancer, including rare forms of those four types.
