Their budget is around £509M (£459M on research and capital grants and £50.5M for training and fellowships), and they support around 1600 scientists and 2000 research students in universities and institutes across the UK.

LINK grant applications are up to £2 million. They involve collaborative research with at least one company and one science-base partner (projects with SMEs are particularly favoured) where at least 50% of the full project cost comes from industry (see FAQs on the BBSRC website for detailed information and example calculations). Applications should be for pre-competitive research that would not be undertaken in this form without LINK support.

Partners must agree ownership and exploitation of intellectual property arising from the project at the outset. An appropriate management framework must be in place with defined scientific and commercial deliverables.

Benefits for company partners include:

• financial support for the project
• closer relationships with the science base
• possibility of recruiting appropriately trained staff at the end of the project

Essential criteria

• The project involves collaborative research with at least one company and one research-base partner
• Overall Government support for a project is no more than 50%
• The application is for research that is pre-competitive in nature
• Arrangements for ownership and exploitation of intellectual property arising from the project have been agreed by the partners
• The project has an appropriate management framework and both the scientific and commercial deliverables are clearly defined