Digital Supply Chain Programme: Made Smarter Innovation | Digital Supply Chain Hub
Creating a virtual hub, data observatory and network of industrial living labs to optimise information flows across manufacturing supply chains.
Opportunity
Digital Twin Industry Challenge Led Accelerator
Open date: Tuesday 15 September 2026 Close date: Tuesday 27 October 2026
Overview
Turn your technology into a digital twin solution for a real-world industry challenge, with up to £75,000 in Innovate UK grant funding to support its development.
Delivered by Digital Catapult, the Digital Twin Industry Challenge Led Accelerator is a nine-month programme connecting UK SMEs with leading organisations across Maritime, Aerospace and Defence to develop innovative solutions to real industry challenges.
The programme will support up to 12 technology SMEs to work directly with an Industry Challenge Owner, combining funding, technical support, mentoring and industry access to develop and demonstrate a digital twin solution.
This is an opportunity to work alongside an industry leader, test your technology in a real-world environment and demonstrate the value of your solution to potential customers and partners.
Why get involved?
Work directly with industry
Gain access to industry leaders and work on a defined challenge with a clear market need. Build your understanding of the problem and develop a solution with the people that will use it
Develop and demonstrate your technology
Apply your technology to a real-world use case and demonstrate how digital twins can address complex industry challenges. The programme provides an opportunity to test, refine and de-risk your approach.
Access funding and expert support
Successful SMEs will receive up to £75,000 in Innovate UK grant funding, alongside support from the UK Digital Twin Centre team, including regular mentoring and access to specialist expertise and facilities.
Build valuable industry connections
Develop relationships with Industry Challenge Owners, other programme participants and the wider digital twin ecosystem, creating opportunities for collaboration and future growth.
Showcase your solution and unlock future opportunities
Present your solution at a final showcase, raise your profile with industry, investors and partners, and demonstrate its commercial potential while exploring potential follow-on opportunities with Industry Challenge Owners.
Who should apply?
We are looking for UK-based SMEs with a demonstrable technology, capability or solution that could be applied to one of the four Industry Challenges below.
You do not need to have extensive experience in Maritime, Aerospace or Defence. We are particularly interested in organisations bringing innovative technologies and approaches that could be applied to these sectors.
The Challenges
Applicants will select a challenge set by one of the Industry Challenge Owners below with an aim to develop a solution using their technology and expertise. Challenges span the Maritime, Aerospace and Defence sectors and are designed to address real-world problems where digital twin technologies could deliver measurable value.
Artemis Technologies Challenge
Object detection and collision avoidance in water
Develop solutions that combine real-time sensing, edge computing and digital twin technologies to monitor complex marine environment and intelligently detect small objects above and below the waterline.
The challenge aims to improve vessel safety, asset health, operator decision-making and operation efficiency, particularly in bandwidth-constrained environments.
BAE Challenge
Digital Twin Development for In-Service Aircraft Systems
Develop and validate a digital twin on an in-service aircraft system, focusing on either the actuation or fuel system, to establish the foundations for improved fleet management, monitoring and predictive maintenance.
The challenge will demonstrate how digital twins can accurately represent the behaviour and condition of aircraft systems in service, helping to improve availability and inform the design of future aircraft.
“Taking part in the Digital Twin Centre Industry Challenge-Led Accelerator as a challenge owner offers an exciting opportunity to engage with leading UK experts and innovators, helping to collaboratively accelerate the development of solutions that support the future of more sustainable maritime transport” Benoit Lecallard Off‑Vessel Systems & Enabling Technologies Lead, Artemis Technologies
“The use of digital technology to engineer, build and support aircraft is key to affordability, performance and longevity. Keeping aircraft operational and available is a continuing challenge that requires more sophisticated technologies and techniques. Digital Twins have the potential to provide deep insight into the performance of aircraft systems and to communicate detailed information across many stakeholders. Digital Twins will enable BAE Systems to proactively shape the approach to keeping aircraft availability as high as possible.” Austin Cook Principal Technologist – CTO Emerging Technology, BAE Systems
Thales Challenge
Health monitoring of uncrewed vessels
Develop digital twin solutions that enable the remote monitoring of Unmanned Surface Vessels (USVs), helping operators understand vessel health, detect faults and identify appropriate actions when issues occur.
The challenge aims to improve vessel reliability, decision-making and operation resilience, while reducing the maintenance burden. Solutions should bring together data from sensors and enable effective monitoring even where the representative vessel data is limited.
Vertical Aerospace Challenge
Digital shadows for eVTOLs with real-time predictions
Develop solutions that use modelling, simulation and real-time data to improve the efficiency and safety of aircraft testing.
The challenge will explore the development of a digital shadow running alongside test flights, providing real-time predictions, identifying potential limit conditions and supporting telemetry and test engineers to make informed decisions during testing.
Thales in the UK view digital twins as an essential component in keeping maritime autonomous systems available and affordable through life. We welcome the opportunity to own this challenge, to tap into the agility and fresh thinking of UK SMEs as part of the wider industry response to the Strategic Defence Review. Rob McGeachy Head of Digital, Thales UK
The UK Digital Twin Centre’s industry-led accelerator offers a natural synergy between Vertical’s search for effective approaches to using its resources and another of its core principles, which is building strong partnerships. As such, Vertical anticipates that through the accelerator programme, not only are impactful solutions found but new partnerships are forged. Ben Lawrence Senior Aircraft Simulation Manager, Vertical Aerospace
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