Where Innovation Funding Is Flowing Next

Deep Tech Meets Societal Impact

Many founders assume funding programs are looking for great ideas. But that’s rarely what assessors are actually evaluating.

What they’re really looking for is innovation that improves how foundational systems operate.

Health systems.
Food systems.
Energy systems.
Education systems.
Social support systems. 
Environmental systems. 

When you look closely at the women innovators recently shortlisted for a major European innovation prize, this pattern becomes very clear.

These founders aren’t just launching products.

They are solving structural problems inside critical industries.

Patterns hiding in plain sight

Across the shortlist you see innovations like:

• AI-guided surgical planning

• faster molecular drug discovery tools

• graphene diagnostics for infectious disease

• satellite monitoring for environmental recovery

• technologies turning agricultural waste into food ingredients.

Different industries.
Different technologies.

But the same underlying intention. Each innovation improves how an existing system performs.

Healthcare becomes faster.
Environmental monitoring becomes scalable.
Food production becomes more efficient.

This is exactly the type of innovation many funding programs are designed to support.

Why this matters when you apply for funding

Most grant programs exist to achieve policy outcomes.

You might find this hard to believe (yes - I'm being fecitious), grant programs are not designed to distribute funding - just because. 

They are trying to improve systems like:

• health delivery

• climate resilience

• regional economies

• education outcomes.

They are designed to build new sectors that help to balance economic risk in geographic areas (and countries as a whole). 

That means assessors instinctively look for projects that contribute to something bigger than the organisation proposing them.

When they see a project that clearly strengthens a system, confidence increases.

The simple positioning shift founders can make

You don’t need a deep-tech startup to apply this thinking. The real insight is how you frame your work.

For instance, compare these two examples.

Version 1: “We built a digital tool that helps teachers plan lessons.”

Version 2: “We developed a system that helps schools deliver project-based learning across multiple subjects.”

Same product. Very different signal.

One describes a tool. The other describes system improvement.

A quick check

Before deciding on applying to the next funding program you find, ask yourself:

• What is the underlying system that currently struggles with this problem?

• How does our work improve how that system operates?

• What measurable improvement will result?

When those answers are clear, your project becomes much easier for assessors to interpret. 

And clarity is one of the strongest signals of a competitive application.

Need a hand?

If you’ve ever struggled to work out whether your project actually aligns with a funding program, you're not alone. Many of the founders I speak with feel the same, and that is why I've created the Funding Fit Check - a tool to help give you clarity before you sink days/weeks into an application.

Sometimes a small positioning shift makes the difference between eligible and competitive.