Summary
- The first Security Open Call cycle runs from 3 to 27 August, with individual projects eligible for up to £350,000.
- Proposals must target Home Office or National Protective Security Authority challenge areas and demonstrate a route to operational use.
- Successful suppliers and subcontractors will have to prove cyber resilience before a contract is awarded.
UK Defence Innovation has relaunched its Security Open Call, offering projects up to £350,000 to develop prototypes addressing cyber resilience, secure government data sharing, protective security, and other Home Office and National Protective Security Authority priorities.
The first competition cycle opened on 3 August and closes at 12:00 BST on 27 August 2026. Further cycles are planned during 2026 and 2027, potentially drawing on requirements from different government bodies.
Funded projects are expected to run for no more than 12 months, although applicants may include an optional testing and trialling phase that extends activity to 18 months. The intended outcome is a prototype or technology demonstrator at Technology Readiness Level 6 or 7, with a credible route to operational impact within two years of completion.
The Home Office challenge areas include secure data sharing across policing and government, disruption of cyber-enabled threats, stronger national-security resilience, online harms, migration analysis, border technology, and organised immigration crime.
The National Protective Security Authority priorities include intrusion detection, hostile-reconnaissance detection, vehicle and crowd screening, extended reality, and AI-enabled training. The competition is not limited to software products, and several themes sit across physical, digital, and operational security.
Applicants will initially submit a short overview proposal. UK Defence Innovation will share suitable submissions with the government challenge owners, and selected applicants will then be invited to prepare a full second-stage proposal. Funding will be awarded only where the idea aligns with a published challenge and there is demonstrable demand from the intended government customer.
The structure attempts to reduce the cost of entering the competition before officials have established whether a proposal fits an operational requirement. It also places the challenge owner, rather than the funding organisation alone, closer to the selection decision.
For cyber suppliers, the competition document introduces an additional dependency: successful innovators and their subcontractors must prove cyber resilience before the contract is awarded. A promising security product will not be sufficient if the supplier cannot demonstrate that its own systems and delivery chain meet the required standard.
That condition reflects the exposure created when small technology companies enter government environments. Early-stage suppliers may hold sensitive challenge information, connect to public-sector systems, process operational data, or introduce software and hardware that remain in service after the funded trial ends.
Innovation funding can accelerate technologies that conventional procurement would struggle to specify in advance, but it also compresses the period in which security assurance, architecture review, data governance, and supplier due diligence must take place. A prototype that reaches operational testing quickly can create dependencies before its support model, update process, ownership structure, or long-term resilience has matured.
The requirement for Technology Readiness Level 6 or 7 is intended to reduce that gap. At those levels, applicants should be demonstrating technology in a relevant environment rather than presenting an early concept. The competition also asks for a realistic transition towards use, which makes integration, testing, and customer ownership part of the proposal rather than issues deferred until after research funding.
The relaunch comes as the UK consolidates several defence-innovation functions under UK Defence Innovation. The organisation brings together activities previously distributed across the Defence and Security Accelerator, the Defence Innovation Unit, command innovation hubs, and parts of Defence Equipment and Support.
Although the current call includes national-security and border challenges, its cyber-resilience elements may draw proposals from companies working in identity, secure information exchange, anomaly detection, infrastructure protection, privacy-enhancing technology, and incident recovery.
The £350,000 ceiling is large enough to support focused development and testing but unlikely to finance full deployment of complex government systems. Successful projects will still need a route into procurement, operational ownership, maintenance, accreditation, and integration with existing public-sector infrastructure.
The first cycle’s short application window places an immediate deadline on suppliers, while the planned later rounds allow challenge owners to adjust priorities as operational requirements change.
