Maritime
As an island nation the UK has traditionally been a leading player in the global maritime industry.
Maritime
|Experts
|Funding Opportunities
|Case Studies
|Events
|News
|Perspective
|Programmes

The maritime industry is critical to the UK economy with approximately 95% of all imports and exports transported by sea, including 25% of the UK’s energy supply, and 48% of the country’s food supplies. Maritime business services directly contribute £2 billion gross value added (GVA) to the UK economy; this is expanded to £5 billion GVA if the wider impacts of the sector are considered.
In addition to freight and goods movements the UK has a significant maritime tourism and leisure industry which was valued at £3.12 billion in 2017. The UK has a thriving and growing cruise sector with 1.96 million cruises sold in the UK in 2017, half of which started at a British port.
The UK is also a world leader in maritime services such as insurance, regulation and certification with London being the global hub for all such services.
Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition
To celebrate the success of the Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition, Innovate UK KTN, on behalf of the Department for Transport and Innovate UK, has collated a series of videos into an online showcase highlighting all the innovative projects winning a share of the £23m funding. These projects represent some of the best examples of UK organisations being world leaders in clean smart maritime technologies of the future which will springboard the UK maritime sector’s transition towards Net Zero.
Browse the videos here.
Related Opportunities
Faraday Battery Challenge Round 6: collaborative R&D
Opens: 16/05/2023 Closes: 16/07/2023
Up to £10m is available to demonstrate or accelerate state of the art battery technologies in the UK, grow the supply chain & increase UK competitiveness.
More Information
Innovate UK Smart grants: January 2023
Opens: 19/01/2023 Closes: 14/06/2023
UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £25 million for game-changing and commercially viable R&D innovations that can significantly impact the UK economy. The dates for this round of Smart have been extended to maximise funding opportunities for applicants.
More Information
Innovation Loans Future Economy Competition: Round 9
Opens: 11/05/2023 Closes: 12/07/2023
UK registered businesses can apply for loans of £100k-£2m for innovative projects with strong commercial potential to improve the UK economy.
More Information
Related Case Studies

UK SHORE High TRL Innovation Events
All stakeholders across the UK’s clean maritime eco-system with an interest in high TRL/pre-commercial deployment are strongly urged to watch our recorded briefing