Helping Yorkshire grow

The Regional Development Agency Yorkshire Forward is to make over £43m available to businesses across Yorkshire and Humber to help them develop innovative new products over the next six years.

The grants for research and development are intended to encourage companies to develop innovative new products, which will help them to grow and become more competitive, by mitigating some of the financial risk associated with new product development.

Of the funding available, £18.5m will support innovation within regional SMEs, which form over 99 per cent of the region’s businesses.

The Grant for Research and Development - or GRD - will provide up to 60 per cent of a company’s R&D project costs, with the other 40 per cent being met by the company. It is anticipated that the funding will be enough to support at least 185 projects across the region over the next five years.

A second fund, worth £25m, has been established for large companies in the region. It too is aimed at accelerating the development of innovative new products.