CfI: Innovation in play to improve child outcomes
Description UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), will invest up to £3 million from the UKRI Breaking Down Barriers to Opportunity Mission in this Contracts for Innovation competition. This is subject to us receiving a sufficient number of high quality applications. The aim of the competition is to support organisations t
- Funding
- See official notice
- Deadline
- October 29, 2026
- Status
- OPEN
- Category
- Small Business & Startups
- Opens
- September 16, 2026
- Directory link check
- October 24, 2026
About this opportunity
Description UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), will invest up to £3 million from the UKRI Breaking Down Barriers to Opportunity Mission in this Contracts for Innovation competition. This is subject to us receiving a sufficient number of high quality applications. The aim of the competition is to support organisations to develop practical solutions that reignite the importance of play and increase access to real world play environments and experiences, enhancing the quality and impact of play in improving outcomes for children and young people. Play is essential for children’s development, supporting cognitive, social, emotional and physical wellbeing. Evidence consistently shows that play is one of the most powerful tools to improve children’s health, happiness, learning outcomes, creativity, resilience, and long term life chances. However, access to rich, inclusive and developmentally appropriate play opportunities is uneven. Barriers to play include socioeconomic disadvantage, limited access to safe or stimulating environments, reduced time for unstructured play, and a lack of confidence or capacity among caregivers, educators and communities to facilitate play effectively. In addition, modern societal changes and trends, including increased traffic, technology, urbanisation and shifting family dynamics, are causing a decline in the opportunities children have to partake in meaningful and enriching forms of play. There is a growing need for innovative approaches that can respond to these challenges and support opportunities for children to engage in active, social, creative, imaginative and physically engaging forms of play, embedded across different settings and populations. This competition is focused specifically on the role of play in shaping the home learning environment (HLE); the everyday interactions, relationships and experiences outside the classroom that are known to strongly influence children’s development and educational outcomes. We are seeking evidence informed, innovative solutions that meet one or more of the following criteria: leverage play as a mechanism to improve children’s learning, development, health, happiness and wellbeing reduce inequalities in access to enriching play experiences and environments support families, caregivers, educators and communities to engage in and facilitate play strengthen the role of play across home, education, and community environments. There should be a particular focus on opportunities that encourage different types of play, including social, imaginative, constructive, sensory and physically engaging play The Opportunity Mission programme has identified a series of specific themes we wish to target within this competition. We are open to a broad range of projects using intervention programmes or services, behaviour change approaches, new delivery or partnership models, or design led and place based innovations to improve the quality, accessibility and impact of play. In accordance with recently published government guidance on screen use for young children, your projects must strengthen face to face interaction between children, families and communities and increase access to real world play environments and experiences. Projects centred on screen based play will therefore not be eligible for funding. Your solution should ultimately contribute to improved learning and developmental outcomes for children and young people through the enrichment of play across key stages of childhood. The definition of play within this competition incorporates what children and young people do when they follow their own ideas, in their own way, and for their own reasons. Play is an activity which is freely chosen, personally directed, and intrinsically motivated. We recognise that it is not just children in the early years who benefit from play, but also older children and teenagers. Therefore, this competition includes children and young people up to the age of 18. By the end of this phase of funding, projects must demonstrate robust evidence for practical approaches that can be delivered in real-world settings and adopted more widely by organisations, services and communities. This is phase 1 of a potential 3 phase competition. The decision to proceed with subsequent phases will depend on the outcomes from previous phases and assessment of separate applications. Only the successful applicants from phase 1 will be invited to apply to take part in phase 2. In applying to phase 1 of this competition you are entering into a competitive process. This competition has a funding budget of up to £3 million, so we may not be able to fund all the proposed projects. It may be the case that your project scores highly and receives positive comments from the assessors but we are still unable to fund it due to the portfolio approach we take. Any adoption and implementation of a solution from this competition would be subject to a separate, possibly competitive, procurement exercise. This competition does not cover the purchase of any solution. We expect to receive a high volume of applications and will not be able to fund them all. We expect to award a maximum of 15 contracts. We consider a range of factors when determining whether to provide funding to applicants. This includes an assessment of prior conduct, such as any outstanding payments owed to Innovate UK or UKRI. Such factors may influence the funding decision, potentially resulting in a refusal of funding or an award subject to additional scrutiny. We also reserve the right to adjust funding allocations for any of our competitions. This may be in response to changes in policy, portfolio funding considerations or broader government funding decisions. This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated in this Innovate UK competition brief . We cannot guarantee other government or third party sites will always show the correct competition information. Funding type Procurement Project size Phase 1 projects can range in size up to total eligible costs of between £200,000 and £500,000 inclusive of VAT. Accessibility and Inclusion We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and are committed to making our application process accessible to everyone. This includes making reasonable adjustments for people who have a disability or a long-term condition and face barriers applying to us. You can contact us at any time to ask for guidance. We recommend you contact us at least 15 working days before this competition’s closing date to allow us to put the most suitable support in place. The support we can provide may be limited if you contact us close to the competition deadline. You can contact Innovate UK by email or call 0300 321 4357. Our phone lines are open from 9am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm UK time, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).
Eligibility recorded
Your project Who can apply Your project Projects must: start on 1 February 2027 and end on the 31 January 2028 last 12 months have total costs of between £200,000 and £500,000, inclusive of VAT Projects must always start on the first of the month, even if this is a non-working day. You must not start your project until your Contract has been approved by Innovate UK. You must only include eligible project costs in your application. See our overview of eligible project costs . If your project does not meet our criteria your application will be made ineligible and it will not be sent for assessment. Applicant To lead a project, you can: be an organisation of any size, including those based in the EU, EEA or internationally work alone or with the subcontracted skills and expertise of others from business, research organisations, research and technology organisations, or the third sector (charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups) Contracts will be awarded to a single legal entity only. The majority of the project work and key deliverables must be completed by the applicant and be carried out in the UK, and most of the funding spent within the UK. Subcontractors can be used, but only for specialist skills. Sanctions This competition will not fund you, or provide any financial benefit to any individual or entities directly or indirectly involved with you, which would expose Innovate UK or any direct or indirect beneficiary of funding from Innovate UK to UK Sanctions . For example, through any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any entity as lead, partner or subcontractor related to these countries, administrations and terrorist groups . Use of animals in research and innovation Innovate UK expects and supports the provision and safeguarding of welfare standards for animals used in research and innovation, according to best practice and up to date guidance. Applicants must ensure that all of the proposed work within projects, both in the UK and internationally, will comply with the UKRI guidance on the use of animals in research and innovation . Any projects selected for funding which involve animals will be asked to provide additional information on welfare and ethical considerations, as well as compliance with any relevant legislation as part of the project start-up process. This information will be reviewed before an award is made. Funding Up to £3 million inclusive of VAT has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this phase 1 competition. Contracts will be between £200,000 and £500,000, inclusive of VAT, for each project of 12 months. We expect to fund up to 15 projects. This is subject to us receiving a sufficient number of high quality applications. Funding will be in the form of a contract. We reserve the right to adjust funding allocations for any of our competitions under exceptional circumstances, for example, in response to changes in policy, portfolio funding considerations, or broader government funding decisions. Successful projects from phase 1 may be invited to a potential phase 2 to further develop their solution. The total funding available for the competition can change. The funders have the right to: adjust the provisional funding allocations between the phases apply a ‘ portfolio ’ approach The contract is completed at the end of phase 1, and the successful organisation is expected to pursue commercialisation of their solution. Value Added Tax (VAT) You must select whether you are VAT registered before entering your eligible project costs. VAT is the responsibility of the invoicing business. We will not provide any further advice and suggest you seek independent advice from HMRC. VAT registered If you select you are VAT registered, you must enter your eligible project costs exclusive of VAT. As part of the application process VAT will be automatically calculated and added to your project cost total. Your total eligible project costs inclusive of VAT must not exceed £500,000. Not VAT registered If you select you are not VAT registered, you must enter your eligible project costs exclusive of VAT and no VAT will be added. You will not be able to increase total project costs to cover VAT later should you become VAT registered. Your total project costs must not exceed £500,000. Research and development (R&D) Your application must have at least 50% of the contract value attributed directly and exclusively to R&D services, including solution exploration and design. R&D can also include prototyping and field-testing the product or service. This lets you incorporate the results of your exploration and design and demonstrate that you can produce in quantity to acceptable quality standards. R&D does not include: commercial development activities such as quantity production supply to establish commercial viability or to recover R&D costs integration, customisation or incremental adaptations and improvements to existing products or processes Innovate UK may revoke our decision to provide funding without notice if government commitment for this initiative is withdrawn. Subsidy control Contracts for Innovation competitions involve procurement of R&D services and are not subject to subsidy control criteria. This competition is run by the Authority under the Procurement Act 2023 (R&D exemption).
Recorded geography: United Kingdom
Directory verification note
Automatically synchronized from UK Find a Grant. Source identifier: cfi-innovation-in-play-to-improve-child-outcomes-1. Confirm details on the official page.