Dates:
Expression of Interest: before midnight, 14 March 2025
Competition opens: 17 March 2025
Competition closes: 30 April 2025, 11:00am
Applicants notified: 22 May 2025
Project start date & duration: 1 September 2025 for up to 7 months
Scope
– be delivered in one of the nine specified geographical areas: North West England, South West England, Yorkshire and Humber, North East England, East Midlands, West Midlands, South East England, East of England and London
– demonstrate clear impact in the cyber security sector of the region through the development of strong and innovative cyber security ecosystems or increasing opportunities for activities to reduce the skills gap
– have endorsement of your area steering group
Specific Themes
– strengthening the local cyber security sector through area partnerships and forging links between industry, public sector and academia
– supporting the development of strong and innovative cyber security ecosystems
– increasing opportunities for local people to pursue a career in cyber security, paying particular attention to underrepresented communities
– cyber security skills for local people or communities to reduce the skills gap
– upskilling underrepresented demographics in the cyber security sector
Projects that will not be funded
– are not in scope for this competition/duplicate activities of the CyberFirst programme
– do not have clear impact in one or more of the nine specified geographical areas
– do not have an impact or application in cyber security
– involve primary production in fishery and aquaculture
– are not allowed under De minimis regulation restrictions/not eligible for Minimal Financial Assistance
– are dependent on export performance/are dependent on domestic inputs usage
Eligibility
– Subsidy Control and the Windsor Framework apply
– Project must be led by a UK business, of any size, and collaborators must be UK based organisations
– Subcontractors are allowed, preferably UK-based, with appropriate and justified costs
– business of any size, academic institution, charity, not for profit, public sector organisation or research and technology organisation (RTO) can lead one application and can be included as a collaborator in any number of applications.
Funding Rates
- Total eligible project costs between £25,000 and £150,000 (£1.8M pot)
- Funding level is up to 100%
- Your project costs can be higher than your grant funding request
How PNO can support you
The UK team has a strong track record in securing some of the most competitive national and European grants on behalf of its clients, with a full understanding of how a project should be presented to stand the highest chance of success. Each year in the UK alone, we are responsible for the submission of more than 100 funding applications across all sectors and priority areas. Based on this extensive experience, through careful project selection and using key insight into how a project should be best positioned, we consistently achieve success rates that are more than 5 times the typical success rates for UK national schemes and EU programmes.
For further information or to discuss a project idea please contact PNO Consultants
0161 488 3488 | info.uk@pnoconsultants.com
