Challenge Tenders

See open challenge fund tenders and awarded contracts for the UK public sector.

Challenge funds and challenge competitions buy things that do not exist yet. A buyer publishes a problem, funds a phase of development, then buys what works. SBRI rounds, innovation challenges, grand challenges and prize-backed competitions all work this way.

Stotles tracks 871 of these notices on record: 406 already awarded, 104 still at pre-market engagement. Supply arrives in bursts, because each round opens when its funding does. That makes the pre-tender stage worth more here than on most topics.

863 results

Showing 1–20 of 863 results

Other topic pages covering nearby areas of public sector spend.

Frequently asked questions

Frequently asked questions about challenge fund, SBRI, innovation challenge, grand challenge, challenge competition, challenge prize in the UK public sector.

  • What is a challenge fund tender?

    A challenge fund puts money behind a problem instead of a specification. The buyer publishes the challenge, suppliers propose solutions, and winners are funded through phases: feasibility first, then a prototype or a pilot. SBRI is the best known route of this kind in the UK, and some buyers now publish it as Contracts for Innovation. Sector is almost irrelevant to finding these rounds. The 871 notices on record cover farming, fusion, waste, asthma monitoring and nuclear decommissioning.

  • How do I find open challenge competitions?

    Filter on the phrasing buyers actually use in the title: challenge fund, SBRI, innovation challenge, grand challenge. Searching for "challenge fund tenders" finds almost nothing, because nobody titles a notice that way.

    Then watch pre-tender rather than open tenders. Of the 871 notices on record, 104 sit at pre-market engagement, and for a challenge round that briefing is usually the only warning you get before applications close. Platform-wide, 0 notices were added last week.

  • Which CPV codes cover challenge fund contracts?

    These notices cluster in research and development. Alongside this page's keyword filter, CPV 73000000 (Research and development services and related consultancy services) appears on 141 of them, 73110000 (Research services) on 57, and 72000000 (IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support) on 46.

    Codes on their own will not find challenge rounds, though. Plenty are coded as whatever the buyer eventually intends to buy, from industrial robots to tree pruning.

  • Who runs challenge funds in the UK?

    Almost anyone with a budget for something unproven. Research funders, health bodies, devolved governments, councils and nuclear decommissioning operators all appear in the notice sample behind this page, which is why the categories here look so mixed. Skills, employability and net zero recur as themes. The Top buyers block on this page is generated live from the same filter, so it shows who is publishing most right now rather than who was busiest when this page was written.

  • What happens after a challenge phase ends?

    Phase one is small and short. If the solution proves out, the buyer may fund a phase two, and after that it either procures at scale through an ordinary competition or the round quietly ends.

    Most of what this page shows is finished business you can mine: 406 of the 871 notices on record are awarded. Read who won a phase, then look for the follow-on contract. Platform-wide, 41,445 awarded contracts expire in the next twelve months.

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