Innovate UK often refers to a ‘Portfolio Approach’ when making decisions about the award of grant funding. At Venturenomix, we felt this was not transparent enough, so we have done some investigating and can share some insights.
Quick Background
We submitted a Freedom of Information Request to Innovate UK asking about the Portfolio Meeting overall, and specifically in relation to the most recent Biomedical Catalyst call in 2026.
The Innovate UK Portfolio Approach in their own words:
“For certain competitions, we employ a portfolio approach to ensure balanced funding across various:
- Research and development categories
- Project durations and costs
- Geographic locations
- Strategic priorities
This approach might mean that some lower-scoring proposals receive funding to maintain strategic balance across our investment portfolio. If a particular competition is using portfolio approach, this will be stated in the competition brief.”
Innovate UK Portfolio Approach in Practice
In the 2026 Innovate UK Biomedical Catalyst call, a portfolio meeting was held between 5 people who Innovate UK described as “not assessors” in their response to our FOI request.
A total of 51 applications were discussed at the Portfolio Meeting with applications scoring between 68.8% and 92.%. The aim of the meeting was to decide which applications would receive grant funding. The three categories of applications being considered in this meeting were specific to the health and life sciences sector (Diagnostics, medical technology and devices, Therapeutic and medicine development and Digital health), meaning that the total number of applications in these 3 categories were too high to award all applicants funding – even though the assessors had recommended all 51 for funding.
1 portfolio meeting, 5 people, 51 applications, 3 categories and £millions in funding to allocate.
Innovate UK pointed out to us that they do not keep formal minutes of the portfolio meetings, so actually understanding how the awarding decisions are made remains a mystery. In part, we can understand this position because releasing the meeting minutes would divulge sensitive information about the applicants. That said, more transparency would be helpful for applicants and those thinking of applying.
Frustrations with Innovate UK’s Portfolio Approach
Many applicants to Innovate UK will have achieved a higher assessment score and not received funding compared to other applicants who have received funding, This is due to the Portfolio Approach. Is the Portfolio Approach from Innovate UK fair? It is a kind of fair. While the Portfolio Approach does not award funding to the highest scoring applications, it does spread grant funding over a broader range of innovation categories.
Venturenomix Consultancy specialises in R&D grant funding strategy and grant writing. Do get in touch if you are seeking advice or support for funding R&D activity with non-dilutive sources of finance.
Alex Chalkley
I have over 20 years experience in founding and scaling businesses, mainly focused on the non-dilutive funding sector. Since 2008, I have built, trained and mentored teams to successfully draw down over €100m in non-dilutive funding from the UK and EU for clients spanning multiple sectors.
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