Foundational Economy Innovation Fund


The Fund

The Foundational Economy Innovation Fund is open for expressions of interest. 

Submit an expression of interest for the Foundational Economy Innovation Fund (Microsoft Form, opens in new tab)

The fund is providing grants for businesses and organisations working in Greater Manchester’s foundational economy - including the health and social care, early education and childcare, and the local high street (retail, hospitality, culture, leisure and tourism) sectors - to trial new ideas and become more resilient. Initial grants of up to £11,000 are available.

The Foundational Economy 

The foundational economy supplies the essential goods and services we all rely on for our daily needs.

In Greater Manchester, it accounts for over 42 per cent of jobs and is made up of more than 60,000 businesses.

It has a big effect on the levels of innovation and business sustainability, employment practices, the quality of work available, and income levels across Greater Manchester.

However, businesses and organisations struggle to attract investment from the private sector, and conversations about innovation tend to focus on industries seen as high-growth.  

Greater Manchester's groundbreaking Foundational Economy Innovation Fund has been established to address this issue. 

The sectors

The Foundational Economy Innovation fund is in its second iteration, focusing on supporting projects in sub-set of the sectors that encompass the foundational economy as a whole:

  • Health and social care
  • Early education and childcare (0-5 years)
  • The local high street (retail, hospitality, culture, leisure and tourism)

The challenges 

We are interested in funding projects that test new and emerging ideas across one or more of the following challenge areas:

Innovations that help with developing, recruiting and retaining staff. This could include new ways of upskilling the workforce, improving progression routes or providing greater flexibility of working patterns and security of hours worked. This could also include finding new ways to connect employers and potential employees, including the self-employed and those who have struggled to find stable work, particularly individuals experiencing inequalities. This does not include using funds to subsidise staff to conduct business as usual activity, the use of monetary incentives, or the purchasing of wellbeing services.

Innovations that help create or integrate new ways of delivering your current services or products to a higher standard by doing things more efficiently and effectively. This could include re-thinking your approach to resourcing, organising work, and the adoption or development of technology. This is not about expanding or fundamentally changing the services or products you provide, but instead doing what you do already, better.

 Innovations that support local, sustainable, and circular supply chains. Circular supply chains being those that share, lease, reuse, repair, refurbish, and recycle existing materials and products for as long as possible within Greater Manchester. Innovations that reduce or manage energy consumption and carbon emissions, including via the development and testing of new technology, as well as new systems and initiatives to use and share resources more efficiently or reduce the use of resources.

 

The projects

The first round of the Foundational Economy Innovation Fund backed 40 entrepreneurs, businesses and organisations. Find out more about the projects in the Foundational Economy Innovation Fund Yearbook and case studies. 

Read the Foundational Economy Innovation Fund 2023-24 Yearbook (PDF, 5.2MB)

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