February 2026 programme Update

Over the past 15 months we have supported organisations across the region to innovate and grow. It’s been incredible to see so much interest in the South Yorkshire Innovation Programme from organisations across the region and a wide variety of sectors, leading to so many successful, interesting projects.

As a result, SYIP has a strong pipeline of live projects and active enquiries, and continuing at the current pace we are on course to fully allocate the academic support budget in a manner that will allow time for all funded activity to complete by October 2026.

If you’re interested in academic support, please ensure that you register your interest as soon possible, and allow time to prepare a complete and costed project proposal for submission by 17:00 Tuesday 31 March 2026 to maximise your chance of a successful application.

As a reminder: SYIP supports organisations to develop new ideas, improve processes, access new markets, and launch new products.

The SYIP team will review the pipeline in April and keep you updated. Please be aware that proposals will need to be considered in light of this update, and we may not be able to fund all proposals.

Any academic projects must be able to complete by 31 October 2026.

Outside of academic support, the SYIP Deploy Grant will soon be reopening. Deploy Grants provide eligible organisations with up to £2,000 towards implementing an innovation solution from a commercial supplier, which could take the form of equipment, software, or consultancy.

Deploy projects enable organisations to develop new ideas, improve processes, access new markets, and/or launch new products or services. Previous projects have ranged from 3D printing solutions to enable rapid in-house prototyping, to development of online portals which allow remote service delivery to new markets, and compliance testing so new products can be brought to market.

Any Deploy projects must be able to complete and submit a final grant claim by 31 August 2026.

Please be aware that all dates are subject to change and we will communicate any updates via our public channels and directly to clients where relevant. To find out more information on the programme, read our case studies, or register your interest in the programme, please visit shu.ac.uk/syip.

Alternatively, please email innovation@shu.ac.uk and we’ll be in touch.