A new funding competition is supporting bio-based innovations to move from laboratory research towards commercial production.
Applications are now open for the Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre’s (IBioIC) Scale-up Accelerator Competition. Backed by Scottish government funding, the competition offers up to £10,000 towards scale-up project costs to help companies and academic teams develop their bioprocesses at the IBioIC’s FlexBIO facility at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.
“Scaling up isn’t just about making more product. Every process behaves differently as volumes increase, so it’s essential to understand how fermentation, downstream processing and product recovery perform at scale before making further investment,” said FlexBIO director of bioprocessing scale-up Neil Renault. “Through the BioProcess Scale-up Accelerator Competition, we want to help more companies reduce risk and advance the development of sustainable bio-based manufacturing in Scotland.”
The accelerator aims to help businesses reduce the risks of bringing new bio-based technologies to the market through FLexBIO’s equipment, technical expertise and process development capabilities. Projects can range from bench-scale processes through to 300l production, supporting companies as they prepare for manufacturing, customer trials and future investment.
The competition addresses the challenge of translating promising research into viable manufacturing processes. It builds on the introduction of an open-access 300l fermenter last year.
Projects must be able to be completed by the end of March 2027 and demonstrate how they will contribute to Scotland’s bio-based manufacturing sector through business growth, investment, collaborative research and development, or strengthened supply chains. Applications close on 1 September 2026.
Earlier this year, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) awarded $26 million in funding towards a programme focused on the development of scalable cell-free DNA bioproduction capabilities.
