With the publishing of the UK Government’s White Paper on Local Growth (Local Growth:realising everyone’s potential) we have the first indication of the future of this important grants scheme. It was already known that the Regional Development Agencies were to be closed by March 2012, therefore it has been decided that the GRD scheme will be moving to the Technology Strategy Board and has been saved, unlike small scale Grant for Business Investment.

The Technology Strategy Board is the national body tasked with increasing innovation in the UK,  it currently handles the Collaborative Research and Development Grant. When the move will take place is not clear, nor is it clear how the grant will be delivered. Currently the Collaborative R&D grant operaties through a series of specific technology calls every year, in the past the RDAs have run GRD though both a rolling prgramme and a competitive scheme depending on the region. Whether

We can only hope that the TSB opens the scheme up to new applications in the near future leaving the RDAs to finalise their remaining projects by March 2012.

The White Paper can be downloaded from BIS.