The email lands. You've won Innovate UK funding, and for about an hour it feels brilliant. Then the detail arrives.

You have 90 days to finish project setup or the offer can be withdrawn. Anything you spend before your go live email can't be claimed. And you only get paid back for costs you've already incurred and paid.

Delivering an Innovate UK project is a different job from winning one. The application was a promise. Now you have to keep it, on a fixed budget, with a funder checking your progress throughout.

Using an agency to design or build the thing you promised? Then how you set up that relationship decides how smooth the next 12 to 24 months will be. Get it right and your claims become far more straightforward. Get it wrong and you'll spend your evenings chasing invoices and explaining scope changes.

This guide covers what happens after you win, what the rules say about agencies, which costs are eligible and how to keep your build and your paperwork in step. It's written in plain English, from the delivery partner's side of the table.

What happens after you win an Innovate UK grant

After you win, you complete project setup on the Innovation Funding Service (IFS), get your grant offer letter approved, then wait for a go live email before you spend anything. Here's the sequence in plain English, based on UKRI's guidance for successful applicants.

1. Within 5 days: name a project manager from the lead organisation, a finance contact, the project location, your correspondence address and your business bank details.
2. Within 30 days: upload an exploitation plan (how you'll turn the project into a business result), plus a collaboration agreement if you have partners.
3. Within 90 days: finish everything else, including answering finance queries and completing your spend profile. Miss this and Innovate UK can withdraw the offer.
4. Grant offer letter and go live: sign the letter, agree your start and end dates, and wait for the go live email. Projects always start on the 1st of a month.

The spend profile deserves more attention than it usually gets. It starts "flat lined", with your total costs split evenly across every month. Your finance contact then reshapes it to show when you'll actually spend the money, and the totals for each cost category have to match your application. You'll reforecast it after every claim, so a realistic profile now saves a lot of awkward conversations later.

Timing matters too. If your grant offer letter is approved on or before the 15th, you can start on the 1st of that month. After the 15th, you start on the 1st of the next month, and UKRI warns that delays can mean shortening your project. That's time you'll want for building.

Here's the rule that catches people out: costs incurred before your agreed start date can't be claimed. If your agency starts discovery work the week after the success email, that work is on you, not the grant. Agree a start date with your agency that matches your go live date, and keep any early work separate.

Using an agency on your Innovate UK project: what the rules say

Yes, you can use an agency. Innovate UK treats it as a subcontractor, and most competitions allow subcontractors. But the work has to justify itself, and the way you contract it affects every claim you make.

UKRI's costs guidance says subcontracted work must be essential to your project, involve expertise your project team doesn't have, and involve skills it isn't practical to develop in house. You should name the subcontractor where you know it, describe what they'll do and say where the work will happen. Many competition briefs also require subcontractors to be based in the UK and to do their part of the work here, so check yours. Where your competition brief differs from the general guidance, the brief wins.

Here's what that means for your agency contract:

• Innovate UK expects justified work. Your contract should describe the agency's work in the same terms as your application, so anyone can see the link.
• Innovate UK expects named subcontractors. Swapping agencies mid project, or adding a new one, means a formal project change request. Choose carefully up front.
• Innovate UK pays on actual costs incurred and paid. Your agency's invoices need to arrive, and be paid, inside the claim period you want to claim them in.
• Innovate UK funds costs net of VAT. If you can recover VAT, claim the net figure. VAT you can't recover can be included in your costs.
• Innovate UK wants value for money. Innovate UK subcontractor costs have to be justified and appropriate to the size of the project. A clear breakdown of days, roles and outputs helps.

A good agency will already think this way. If yours sends a single invoice that says "development, phase 1", you'll struggle to show what the money paid for. Ask for invoices that reference your work packages and milestones from the start.

Still writing your application? Our partnership with Grantbank pairs grant writing with delivery, so the subcontract section is right first time.

Innovate UK eligible costs in plain English

Innovate UK eligible costs are the actual costs of your project, incurred between your start and end dates, across 7 categories. The competition brief sets how much of those costs the grant covers, and you fund the rest.

• Labour: people on your payroll working directly on the project, backed by timesheets or project records.
• Overheads: none, a flat 20% of labour costs, or a calculated figure that Innovate UK reviews.
• Materials: things bought from third parties for the project, including software bought specifically for it.
• Capital usage: the share of equipment depreciation used on the project, not the full purchase price.
• Subcontract: your agency and any other third party doing specialist work for you.
• Travel and subsistence: reasonable, economy travel for people working on the project.
• Other costs: things like training specific to the project, some market assessment and, for smaller businesses, a contribution towards IP registration.

Common traps

Claims often trip up on costs that feel reasonable but aren't eligible. UKRI's guidance rules out discretionary bonuses, overtime, time off in lieu, dividends, forecast pay rises and the apprenticeship levy from labour costs. Indirect overheads only count if they're genuinely extra because of the project. And the independent accountant's report you may need for your claims isn't claimable at all.

For the detail, go to UKRI's costs guidance and talk to your accountant. Your agency's job is to make its part of the claim easy to evidence. Your accountant's job is to make sure the whole claim adds up.

Delivering an Innovate UK project without losing control of scope

The safest way of delivering an Innovate UK project is to turn your application into a build plan before anyone writes a line of code. In our experience, many compliance headaches start as delivery problems. Scope drifts, the spend profile stops matching reality, and nobody can show how the work links back to what you promised.

Turn work packages into a build plan

Applications are written to win. They describe outcomes, work packages and milestones, but rarely in a form a design and development team can work from day to day. So the first job is translation, which is why we push for discovery before build. Break each work package into research activities, features and design or build tasks, then check the effort and cost against what you put in the application.

This is where you find the gaps early. Maybe the application assumed a native app when a web app would do the job. Maybe user research was squeezed into 2 weeks when it really needs 6. Far better to spot that in month 1 and raise it with your monitoring officer than discover it in month 9.

Line up invoices, milestones and your spend profile

Your spend profile says when money goes out. Your agency's plan says when work gets done. Your invoices connect the 2. Agree an invoicing rhythm that follows your milestones and your claim periods, so each claim includes clean, paid invoices for work you can actually show.

Keep the evidence as you go

Monitoring officers want to see progress, not just spend. Store the outputs from each stage somewhere easy to find: research findings, user testing notes, design files, sprint reviews and release notes. When your progress review comes round, you're pulling together a folder, not rebuilding 3 months of history.

Know who does what

Delivery works best when everyone sticks to their lane. Your grant writer knows the application inside out, and your accountant owns the numbers and the claim.

Your agency owns the product: research, design, build and the evidence that it happened. You own the decisions. When those roles blur, things get missed.

How adeus approached it

adeus is a digital wills and secure vault platform. adeus used Innovate UK funding to develop its product, and Untapped delivered the UX user research, UX strategy and UI design. We've written more about the UX behind adeus separately.

We started with research, not screens. Research with the people adeus is built for gave the project its direction before any design work began. That research shaped the UX strategy, and the strategy shaped the UI.

That order matters on a funded project. Research findings give your monitoring officer solid evidence that the work is progressing and grounded in real user needs. A clear strategy makes it easier to say no to features that weren't in the plan. And designs built on both are far less likely to need expensive rework later, which protects your budget and your spend profile.

It's the same approach we take with any grant funded build: understand the problem properly, agree the plan, then design and build against it.

Working with your Innovate UK monitoring officer

Your Innovate UK monitoring officer checks that your project follows the funding terms and reports your progress back to Innovate UK. They don't manage your project for you. UKRI now calls this role a Monitoring Service Provider, but most people still say monitoring officer.

Expect an initial meeting once you have permission to start, then regular progress reviews, usually every quarter. They'll look at your progress against the plan, your spend against your profile and how you're tracking towards your exploitation plan. After each claim, you'll reforecast the spend profile for the rest of the project.

Raise changes early

Plans change. That's normal, and Innovate UK knows it. What nobody likes is a surprise.

Need to move budget between cost categories, change your subcontractor, adjust scope or extend the timeline? You'll need an Innovate UK project change request, and your monitoring officer is the place to start.

The earlier you flag a change, the easier the conversation. A monitoring officer who hears about a risk in month 3 can help you plan around it. If they hear about it in your final quarter, there's far less room to help.

Bring your agency into this. A good delivery partner should help you spot changes coming, explain the impact in plain terms and supply what you need to support the request.

Make the first 90 days of your Innovate UK project count

Winning the grant is the start, not the finish. 3 things will make delivering an Innovate UK project far easier:

• Don't start funded work before your go live email, and agree your agency's start date to match it.
• Contract your agency in the language of your application, with invoices tied to milestones and claim periods.
• Turn your work packages into a real build plan early, and tell your monitoring officer about changes as soon as you see them.

Just won? You need a build plan your team, your agency and your monitoring officer can all work from. Our [link to: Build Plan Sprint] is built for exactly that.

Already in setup and want a second pair of eyes? Book a [link to: First 90 Days workshop] and we'll work through your setup, spend profile and first milestones with you.

FAQs

Can I use an agency on an Innovate UK grant?

Yes. Most competitions allow subcontractors, including agencies. The work must be essential, need expertise your team doesn't have and be impractical to develop in house. Name the agency in your application and check your competition brief for any location rules.

Can I claim costs from before my project starts?

No. Costs incurred before your agreed start date can't be claimed, and you mustn't start until you receive your go live email. Keep any early work with your agency separate from the funded project.

How are Innovate UK grants paid?

In arrears. You incur and pay eligible costs first, then claim them back through the Innovation Funding Service, usually every quarter. Plan your cash flow to cover that gap.

What does an Innovate UK monitoring officer do?

They check your project follows the funding terms, review your progress and spend, and report back to Innovate UK. They're there to help you stay compliant, but they aren't your project manager.

What happens if our agency or scope changes mid project?

Talk to your monitoring officer first. Changes to your subcontractors, budget split or scope need a formal project change request, and requests raised early are much easier to agree.

Can we claim VAT on agency invoices?

If you can recover VAT, claim the net amount only. If you can't recover it, for example because you aren't VAT registered, you can include it in your costs.