Digital Twin Academic R&D Accelerator

Applications open on 10 December 2025 and close on 11 February 2026 23:59. Applications must be complete and submitted by this deadline in order to be considered.

We aim to make a decision and notify successful applicants by early March 2026.

The accelerator is expected to start May 2026 and conclude in March 2027.

We will fund feasibility projects, industrial research projects and experimental development projects.

Digital Catapult will grant a maximum of £225,000 to each successful applicant. The funding will be provided on a full economic costs basis. This means that the funding from Digital Catapult will cover 80% (FEC) of the project costs – for example, if your project costs total  £281,250, you will be able to claim for the maximum of £225,000 from Digital Catapult.

We are not funding projects that:   

• do not demonstrate the potential to positively impact on the UK economy. 

• do not demonstrate clear advancement of technology and potential application or novel application of existing technology to solve challenge 

• request substantial funding for non-UK based partners or subcontractors 

• do not meet the competition eligibility or scope 

• do not address the size, potential and access to market for the innovation 

• do not evidence the potential for their idea or concept to lead to significant return on investment (ROI), positive economic impact, growth and scale-up of a business 
• do not commit to sharing their knowledge and outputs with the Digital Catapult through the UKDTC programme and wider industry. 

We cannot fund projects that are: 

• dependent on export performance 

• dependent on domestic inputs usage 

The UK’s Digital Twin opportunity depends on closing two gaps:  

• Capability Gap – Many businesses lack the tools, partnerships, and funding to adopt or supply digital twin technology. 

• Knowledge Gap – Tier 1 industry needs validated, research-driven approaches for scalable digital twin solutions.  

• Academic & R&D lays the long-term foundation, building standards, frameworks, and innovative approaches to shape future working practices and methodologies. 

Two specific gaps are targeted through this call: 

• Digital Twin Operations (DTOps): Established DevOps and DevSecOps practices have limitations when applied to cyber-physical systems. System models must persist over long operational lifetimes. Operators need solutions that continually verify system compliance across the cyber-physical boundaries and incorporate real-time data synchronisation and new cyber-physical security models. 

• Security & Trustworthiness for Digital Twins: The diversity of the constituent technologies and the data sources encountered in cyber-physical systems amplifies conventional security challenges and demands new trust models. Alignment between representations of the physical domain and the security domain present opportunities for novel approaches to Digital Twin security. 

• For proposals targeting Digital Twin Operations, those exhibiting the following features will be looked upon positively:
  • Exploitation of proven practices and tools through adaption, repurposing or extension.
  • Methodologies and approaches that demonstrate potential to be adoptable by SME organisations.

• For proposals targeting Security & Trustworthiness for Digital Twins, those exhibiting the following features will be looked upon positively:
  • Convergence of ontological approaches to modelling the physical and security domain.
  • Demonstrable alignment with the foundational principles of ‘Security by Design’

• Key target industry sectors of interest are Maritime, Aerospace, Defence

• These are examples of potential application areas. We will consider all proposals that address the challenge areas and meet the criteria for eligibility.