CfI: Advanced Connectivity Technologies (ACT) Call 1: 2026 Historical Funding Reference

CfI: Advanced Connectivity Technologies (ACT) Call 1: 2026 Historical Funding Reference

Innovate UK’s CfI: Advanced Connectivity Technologies (ACT) Call 1 is a closed funding opportunity. The official UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) page records the call as Closed, with an opening date of 1 April 2026 and a closing date of 3 June 2026 at 11:00am UK time. This page is therefore an archive reference for the completed call, not an invitation to submit a new application.

The call was aimed at practical work in advanced connectivity. UK registered organisations could apply for a share of £15 million, including VAT, with a maximum award of £2 million. The stated purpose was to develop near-term, testable solutions that advance the UK’s Secure and Resilient and Sustainable Network Grand Challenges through deployable prototypes on UK testbeds.

There is no new deadline or successor ACT call announced on the verified UKRI page. Readers should not treat the archived closing date as a live deadline, and should not assume that the Innovation Funding Service link on the page remains an open route for Call 1 applications. The record is retained because the official page still documents the call’s scope and rules, which may be useful when reviewing prior work or watching for a separately announced future opportunity.

At a glance

What the call was designed to support

This was not a general-purpose technology grant. The official description focused on solutions that could be developed and tested in the near term. The intended output was a deployable prototype, not only a research proposal, a market study, or a set of untested technical claims. A credible project would therefore have needed to connect its technical work to a test environment in the UK and explain what the prototype would demonstrate.

The subject matter was advanced connectivity, but the call’s themes give the most useful way to interpret that phrase. The first theme was secure and resilient networks. A project in this area could have addressed protection against compromise, dependable operation during disruption, recovery from faults, or other technical characteristics that help networks remain trustworthy and available. The second theme was sustainable networks. A project in this area could have focused on reducing the energy, materials, or operational burden associated with connectivity while preserving useful performance.

The official page does not turn those themes into a promise that every type of network project would qualify. Fit would have depended on the relationship between the proposed solution, the relevant Grand Challenge, the prototype, and the UK testbed. The strongest historical reading is that the call sought work with a clear technical purpose, a realistic path to demonstration, and a result that could be evaluated rather than described only in broad terms.

Funding and award size

The total fund was £15 million including VAT. That was a pool from which organisations could request a share; it was not a guarantee that every applicant would receive funding or that one project would receive the entire amount. The official page also set a maximum award of £2 million. Any retrospective assessment of a Call 1 proposal should keep those two figures separate: £15 million described the overall fund, while £2 million was the upper limit for an individual award.

The page does not announce a new budget, a replacement competition, or a new award limit. It would be inaccurate to carry the £15 million figure forward as though it were available for a future round. It is the financial description of the completed Call 1 cycle and should be read in that context.

Including VAT is also material when reviewing old budgets. A project team comparing its original request with the published fund should not silently remove VAT or compare the total pool with a pre-VAT internal estimate. The official page gives the fund on an including-VAT basis, so historical records should preserve that qualification.

Who could lead a project

The official eligibility summary says that a project lead could be a UK registered organisation. The lead could work alone or work with other organisations as subcontractors. Contracts were to be awarded to a single legal entity only. This distinction matters: collaboration was possible, but the call did not describe a multi-lead contracting model in which several organisations would each hold the main award.

Subcontractors could be based in the UK or overseas. Their contribution had to be necessary and justified, and it had to meet procurement and security requirements. That permission was conditional, not automatic. An overseas supplier was not eligible merely because it was technically capable; the applicant would have needed to explain the role and satisfy the relevant requirements. Likewise, the presence of a subcontractor did not remove the responsibility of the single contracting entity to manage delivery.

Because the call is closed, these points should not be presented as current eligibility for a new submission. They describe the completed Call 1. A future ACT competition, if one is announced, could use different rules, a different contract structure, or a different geographic scope. Nothing on the verified page confirms such a change or announces such a competition.

What a strong historical project would have needed to show

The official summary is concise, so it should not be expanded into an invented checklist of mandatory attachments. It does, however, establish several questions that any serious Call 1 proposal would have needed to answer clearly.

First, the applicant would have needed to show that the lead entity was UK registered and capable of holding the contract. Second, the technical idea would have needed to be close enough to implementation to support a near-term, testable solution. Third, the proposal would have needed a credible route to a deployable prototype on a UK testbed. Fourth, the work would have needed a clear connection to either secure and resilient networks, sustainable networks, or both. Finally, any subcontracting arrangement would have needed a necessary and justified role, along with procurement and security treatment.

Those are assessment lenses drawn from the official description, not a substitute for the full application guidance. The UKRI page links to full opportunity details on the Innovation Funding Service, but Call 1 is now closed. There is no current submission route to describe here and no basis for telling a reader to prepare a new application for this specific call. For an archived project file, the sensible materials to preserve are the submitted technical case, prototype and testbed description, budget, organisational information, and subcontractor justifications that were actually used at the time. This advice helps with record-keeping; it does not claim that every item was a formally required field.

Reading the testbed requirement correctly

The testbed requirement is central to the call’s character. A deployable prototype should be considered in relation to the environment where it would be tested, the conditions that matter, and the evidence that would show whether the solution worked. For a secure or resilient network project, that evidence might concern operation during faults or attacks. For a sustainable network project, it might concern resource use alongside service performance. The exact metrics would have depended on the project and are not specified on the public summary page.

The important historical distinction is between a testable prototype and a purely conceptual result. A proposal could have contained research, design, or modelling, but the official wording points toward something that could be deployed and evaluated on a UK testbed. A project that required several unresolved breakthroughs before a demonstration would have had a weaker fit than one with a defined build and test path.

Application status and next steps

There are no Call 1 application steps available now because the opportunity is closed. The official page’s link to the Innovation Funding Service should be treated as a reference to the original opportunity details, not as confirmation that the portal accepts new Call 1 submissions. The official page does not provide a replacement deadline or announce a next ACT round.

For someone researching the completed cycle, the appropriate next step is to read the official UKRI page, retain the historical dates and eligibility rules accurately, and distinguish those facts from any future announcement. An organisation considering a new connectivity project should wait for a separately published opportunity and check that new page for its own fund, deadline, applicant rules, and application instructions. It should not reuse the archived 3 June 2026 deadline or assume that a later call will carry over the £2 million maximum award.

Questions this archive entry can answer

Was Call 1 still open after 3 June 2026?

No. UKRI marks the opportunity Closed, and the page gives 3 June 2026 at 11:00am UK time as the closing date. The deadline in this record is retained as the real closing date for archive purposes.

Who was the funder?

The funder was Innovate UK. UKRI hosts the opportunity page, but the page identifies Innovate UK as the funder. That is why Innovate UK is the verified source organisation in this record.

Could a lead apply with no partners?

Yes, the official eligibility summary says a UK registered organisation could work alone or with other organisations as subcontractors. The contract would still be awarded to a single legal entity.

Could an overseas organisation lead?

The official summary specifies a UK registered organisation as the project lead. It separately allows UK or overseas subcontractors when their contribution is necessary, justified, and compliant with procurement and security requirements.

Is there a new ACT deadline?

No new deadline is confirmed on the official UKRI page. This record does not invent one. Any future cycle should be treated as a separate opportunity only after Innovate UK or UKRI publishes its official details.

Why keep a closed opportunity listed?

The call has a defined public scope, funding size, eligibility model, and historical closing date. Keeping those facts available can help organisations understand earlier UK connectivity funding and review past proposals. The historicalReference flag makes the status explicit so the entry is not mistaken for an active listing.

Official source and archive note

The authoritative source for this entry is the UKRI page for CfI: Advanced Connectivity Technologies (ACT): Call 1. It records the Closed status, Innovate UK as funder, the £15 million total fund, the £2 million maximum award, the 1 April 2026 opening date, the 3 June 2026 closing date, and the eligibility summary for UK registered leads and subcontractors.

The page is preserved here as a factual historical reference. It does not announce a successor call, a renewed application window, or a new deadline. Readers should use the official URL for any later update and verify the details of any separately published competition before relying on them.