Funding collaborations

Transform your innovation ideas into funded reality

Whether you're exploring KTP opportunities, other Innovate UK grants, or collaborative funding options, we'll help you identify the right opportunities and develop compelling proposals tailored to your innovation needs.

Our innovation experts have achieved a 100 percent success rate with Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) applications for over 14 years.

Book a discovery call

• Book a discovery call: Identify potential collaboration pathways to support your business

50 years of innovation excellence

For half a century, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships have been driving innovation through dynamic collaborations between forward-thinking businesses and leading academics. These partnerships go beyond theory to deliver tangible results that drive growth and transform businesses.

How KTP works for your business

We help you scope a KTP project that addresses your specific innovation challenges .

Our process includes:

Our innovation experts provide comprehensive support, ensuring a smooth journey from project inception to successful completion.

• Connecting you with a dedicated academic support team
• Implementing innovative solutions with real-world commercial impact
• Identifying a highly qualified graduate or postgraduate embedded within your organisation
• Creating a unique three-way partnership that leverages cutting-edge research

Transform your business with KTP

Jointly funded by Innovate UK and your business, KTP offers transformative opportunities for companies of all sizes:

• Develop & Disrupt Create innovative products, services, and processes that disrupt markets, capture new customers, and boost competitiveness.
• Streamline & Save Improve operations, reduce costs, and enhance efficiency for better profitability and sustainable growth.
• Access Expertise Tap into cutting-edge expertise and facilities that would otherwise be out of reach, giving you a crucial competitive edge.
• Develop Talent Build the skills of highly qualified graduates while contributing to the UK economy and your future workforce.

Innovate UK application aupport

Our Surrey Innovation & Enterprise Hub experts specialise in business-led collaborations. We help your organisation work with our academic experts and successfully apply for Innovate UK grants and funding for your innovation projects.

Innovate UK is the UK’s innovation agency and part of UK Research and Innovation, a non-departmental public body funded by grant-in-aid from the UK Government. Innovate UK drives productivity and economic growth by supporting businesses to develop and realise the potential of new ideas, including those from the UK’s world-class research base.

Explore the latest Innovate UK funding competitions.

Discovery sessions

Discover your potential Let us help you to explore your needs and identify collaboration pathways that support your business growth.

Book a session

Get connected We facilitate introductions to our academic experts and provide hands-on technical workshops using our proven collaboration toolkit.

Our business-led collaboration toolkit Our comprehensive collection of documents, templates, and videos gives academics and businesses a competitive advantage in securing public funding for business innovation.

Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences

• Connected systems
• Future electronics
• Communication technologies
• Computational fluid dynamics and environmental flow
• Visual and audio analysis
• Nuclear science
• Made-to-measure materials
• Sustainability, environment and resilience
• Engineering for health
• Space and aerospace

Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences

• Chronobiology and sleep
• Digital health and data science
• Educational research
• Healthy ageing and supporting long-term conditions
• Individuals, organisations and society
• Infection and immunity
• Nutrition and food security

Faculty of Arts, Business and Social Sciences

• Living and working in the digital age
• Society, economy and sustainability
• Innovative methodologies
• Crime, security, and justice
• Inequalities, governance, and wellbeing
• Cultural practices
• Management

Cross-faculty research

​​​​​​Our pan-university Institutes represent priority areas of critical mass. Interdisciplinary collaboration and industry engagement will enable us to break new ground in world-class research. Our Institutes include:

• Institute for People-Centred AI
• Institute for Sustainability
• Institute of Space

Butternut Box

Butternut Box partners with Surrey's School of Veterinary Medicine to scientifically prove fresh dog food's nutritional benefits, driving market growth and informed pet owner choices.

Cycle Confident

Surrey Business School and the School of Engineering partners with Cycle Confident to improve the effectiveness and reach of cycle training initiatives for adults and children by leveraging participant surveys and wider contextual data.

Therme Group

The School of Engineering and the School of Hospitality and Tourism partners with Therme Group to create the first comprehensive, science-based carbon footprint calculator for the services acquired by clients of the visitor economy.

JT Financial Management

The University of Surrey partners with JTFM to develop an innovative AI-powered FinTech toolkit that automates chart generation, enabling rapid client presentation and reduces manual effort.

William Medcalf Ltd

William Medcalf Ltd, vintage Bentley engineering specialists, partnered with Surrey to transform supply chains and integrate new automotive technologies, driving expansion and growth.

Allergy UK incorporating Anaphylaxis UK

The School of Psychology partners with Anaphylaxis UK to develop and train staff to deliver a bespoke digitised Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) based intervention to reduce allergy-related anxiety, improving the lives of all affected by serious allergy.

Thermo Fisher Scientific

Thermo Fisher Scientific partnered with Surrey's School of Engineering to develop novel X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy applications, resulting in a new patented instrument.

Waters

Waters partners with the School of Biosciences to apply and validate a new spatial OMICS workflow combined with mass-spectrometry imaging to greatly improve the understanding of disease processes in prostrate cancer and facilitate its implementation in clinical settings.

Humain

Humain partnered with the Centre for Vision, Speech and Signal Processing to use state-of-the-art machine learning methods, especially deep learning to reduce the cost, time, and effort of creating highly emotive and interactive digital humans.

Givaudan UK Ltd

The School of Psychology partners with Givaudan to develop and embed new capabilities to enhahnce the design of fragrances towards the older population, to enable Givaudan to expand its product offering, with significant potential for societal and commercial impact.

Plastipack

The School of Mathematics and Physics and the Advanced Technology Institute partnered with Plastipack to develop new high-performance water cover products and enhance existing products using light-matter interactions and to enable bespoke product design for new and existing markets.

Surrey County Council

Surrey Business School partnered with Surrey County Council to increase patronage of bus services in the county of Surrey by establishing new ways of identifying customer needs, behaviours and user-experience, making bus services more appealing to potential customers.

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd

Surrey Space Centre partnered with SSTL to develop a compact monitor to measure the radiation environment on a new generation of satellites being designed for deployment in geostationary/high-radiation orbits.

The Whiteley Clinic

The School of Veterimary Medicine, the School of Engineering, and Surrey Business School partnered with The Whiteley Clinic to develop a novel medical device to treat truncal varicose veins and pelvic veins without tumescence influencing clinical practice in vascular surgery worldwide.

WSP

The School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering partnered with WSP UK to develop an optimisation engine for a system which counters problems of flooding, freshwater supply, and ecological stress through storage of excess freshwater in a network of automatically-controlled storage systems within the landscape.

AT Medics

The School of Health Sciences and Surrey Business School partnered with AT Medics to plan, develop and implement the Primary Care Quality Dashboard system to measure performance, evaluate innovation and expansion opportunities.

Advanced Engineering

The School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering partnered with Advanced Engineering to develop slow-release, biocidal products to prevent bio-film formation within heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems and to develop new products for heat-transfer surfaces of HVAC systems.

Research areas