<\/p>\n
Glasgow City Region has launched a \u00a325 million Open Call for ambitious project funding proposals that will drive local innovation and grow the economy, providing a vital boost to businesses within the Region\u2019s Health and Life Sciences sector.<\/p>\n
The Open Call is targeted at projects which are delivering transformative research and development that will improve lives \u2013 accelerating the commercialisation of research or turning research into practical real-world use such as product development, prototyping, tech transfer and patents.<\/p>\n
The focus on the Health and Life Sciences sector was underpinned by detailed analysis on the local innovation ecosystem by the Region\u2019s Intelligence Hub to identify the sectors that offered the most potential to grow the economy, validated by industry experts.<\/p>\n
The local Health and Life Sciences sector now supports over 10,000 jobs and has seen a 47% increase in employment between 2019 and 2023.<\/p>\n
It is recognised to have enormous future potential, with its MedTech, BioTech, and Pharma and Biopharma-sub sectors particularly strong, and Scottish Enterprise projecting a 300% growth potential in turnover in the cluster across Scotland by 2035. The Region already accounts for almost 60% of the total turnover across the country.<\/p>\n
Susan Aitken, chair of the Glasgow City Region Cabinet and leader of Glasgow City Council, said: \u201cHealth and Life Sciences is an example of a dynamic sector where Glasgow is at the forefront \u2013 one ranked by DSIT as more innovative than comparators in London and the OxCam Cluster, and which is projected to grow by three hundred per cent across Scotland in the next decade.<\/p>\n
\u201cBenefitting from an ecosystem with unparalleled access to clinical expertise, the city has become a live testbed for new health technologies and treatments.<\/p>\n
Cllr Aitken continued: \u201cThat combination of entrepreneurialism and cutting-edge research is exemplified by Glasgow University spinout Chemify. Having secured support from the Innovation Accelerator programme, Chemify now employs 165 staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the type of success story we want even more of. And I\u2019m delighted to announce our call for ambitious proposals that could benefit from a share of twenty-five million pounds now available through the Local Innovation Partnerships Fund.<\/p>\n
\u201cLed by UK Research and Innovation and administered here in the City Region, funding will be awarded to health and life sciences projects moving research from the laboratory into real-world use.\u201d<\/p>\n
As digital enabling technologies is already highly integrated within the cluster and already providing the levers to support the Life Sciences sector in Glasgow, proposals from businesses with a further sector \u2013 Digital Enabling Technologies, where activity is driving digitally powered innovation and growth in Health and Life Sciences will also be considered. This is in recognition that breakthroughs in health, medicine and biotechnology are often accelerated by data science, AI and quantum computing.<\/p>\n
Project proposals must meet eligibility criteria and come with private sector match funding of at least 2:1 from non-public sources. For every one pound of public spend, the projects must realise or enable \u00a32 of private investment.<\/p>\n
Applications can be made through the Glasgow City Region Open Call website and must be submitted by 20th February 2026, with a shortlisting process completed in March 2026.<\/p>\n
An Online MS Teams event for bidders to ask questions will be held on Monday 15 December at 4pm. Contact glasgowcityregion@glasgow.gov.uk for details and a link.<\/p>\n
The Open Call forms part of the wider UK Government Local Innovation Partnerships Fund (LIPF) that will invest up to \u00a3500 million into the development and scaling of high-potential innovation clusters across the UK. It is designed to support both established clusters with a proven track record of innovation, and emerging clusters that are in earlier stages of development but have significant potential to generate economic value.<\/p>\n
Along with Manchester and West Midlands, Glasgow will benefit from a \u00a350 million funding pot over five years.<\/p>\n
Glasgow\u2019s Local Innovation Partnership Fund will be made up of:\u00a0<\/p>\n
The supporting \u00a320 million infrastructure fund will be launched next week (week commencing 15 December) and will be open for 14 weeks.<\/p>\n
The new funding follows on the back of and learning from the successful Innovation Accelerator pilot scheme for which Glasgow City Region benefitted from \u00a343 million in UK Government funding to support local breakthrough technologies \u2013 from Extended Reality to advances in fintech, quantum computing and chemputation, along with Greater Manchester and the West Midlands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Glasgow City Region has launched a \u00a325 million Open Call for ambitious project funding proposals that will drive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7826],"tags":[748,918,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-626022","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-glasgow","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-glasgow","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115700321043091073","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}