Menu
Apply

For businesses of any size

Funded AI projects for your business

This is for you if…

…you run a UK start-up, SME or family business and want to bring research and new technology, such as AI, into it with public funding;

…or you lead a larger company and want to fix an operating problem, or to join funded research as a partner.

Put AI into your operations, co-funded: five routes, from a Knowledge Transfer Partnership to a place in a funded research consortium. The funder pays; your business contributes in kind or co-funds.

Next step

Tell us about your business, what you want to change and any funding call you have in mind.

Email us about a funded project

If your email app does not open, write to cbit@ntu.ac.uk

Five routes

  • A Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP): an associate embedded in your business, working on AI in the supply chain, dashboards, AI agents and automation, and staff upskilling. Groundwork projects can lead to one.
  • A subcontract in your own grant: CBIT as research partner or subcontractor inside your company’s own Innovate UK grant.
  • Innovate UK programmes: programmes your business and CBIT apply for together, such as support for investment readiness.
  • EU projects: a place in a European consortium, such as a Horizon Europe project.
  • UKRI consortia: join a UKRI-funded research consortium as an industry partner, as partners do in BeefTwin, the UKRI project CBIT leads.

Format

  • A KTP runs for 24 to 30 months, and is co-funded by Innovate UK and the company
  • Groundwork projects run for up to 18 months
  • In the other routes, CBIT takes a partner or subcontract role inside the grant

The AI edition

Put AI into your operations with public co-funding, with CBIT as your research partner.

What AI adds

  • Delivered: the KTP with Elite Capital (BarberBoss) on AI-enabled supply-chain visibility, scoped as a base system, integrated data feeds, AI tools and dashboards, and staff upskilling. CBIT era
  • Method: CBIT turned the KTP into two training frameworks, “AI Agent Workforce Orchestration” and “AI as External Brain”.
  • Live: Kinnordy Estate is BeefTwin’s farm partner in a UKRI consortium building an AI digital twin.
  • Convening: ai4smes.co.uk, the site of the Transforming SMEs with AI conference, is hosted by CBIT and supported by Innovate UK.

AI-native outcome: a business whose core operations run on AI-supported data and workflows, with its own staff trained to run and improve them.

Track record

  • £290K

    Innovate UK Knowledge Transfer Partnership — KTP 10063869, Nottingham Trent University × Elite Capital / BarberBoss

    2024–2026

  • £5.5m+

    in public funding secured for research and innovation, with partners

    since 2022

Source: CBIT figures registry v1.8 (1 October 2026). Figures and sources

Impact story

Funded AI projects

A fast-growing grooming brand used a Knowledge Transfer Partnership to put AI into its supply chain

The KTP “has already yielded excellent results, significantly improving our supply chain efficiency”. BarberBoss’s Director, in a letter to CBIT.

Read the story

Who: Elite Capital, the UK company behind the BarberBoss grooming brand.

The challenge
Fast growth had outrun manual, spreadsheet-based processes, and stock-outs were cancelling marketplace orders.
What CBIT did
Nottingham Trent University and CBIT formed a KTP with the company. An embedded associate built data feeds, dashboards and AI tools for supply-chain visibility, and trained staff to use them.
What happened
The company reported better supply-chain efficiency. CBIT now uses the partnership as a live teaching case for business leaders.
Track record
See the track record on this page
Where it can lead
A business can follow a KTP with further Innovate UK or EU projects, or with a programme for its leaders.

The company’s case study

More case studies from funded collaborations: an ESG auditor that turned compliance into profit and a wealth manager’s behavioural AI.

Where this can lead

Not what you need?

Other ways to work with CBIT, for founders and SMEs:

Help me choose

Or another door: