Made Smarter funding for region's manufacturing businesses set to double

Advanced manufacturing SMEs in the East of England are set to receive more support to grow and innovate after the Government agreed to double its funding for the Made Smarter Adoption (MSA) programme.

The programme will deliver funding, impartial advice, a roadmap from digital specialists, and leadership and management development programmes to upskill workforces. Norfolk County Council will also be responsible for delivering and processing 48 match-funded grants delivered up to £20k.

A successful pilot has seen Norfolk County Council lead a £1.2m programme in 2025/26, supporting more than 88 SMEs in the region with digital support and roadmaps for implementation, leadership and management, organisational change. Funding for a £2.4m programme for 2026/27, with the potential for a significant increase in future years, has now been confirmed - subject to Government funding and performance.

Norfolk County Council's cabinet is expected to agree to receipt of the funding and to the council being the accountable body for the programme when it meets on 5 January 2026.

The East of England Made Smarter Adoption Programme Board is made up of upper tier local authorities from Bedfordshire, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Suffolk and Norfolk, and is led by a Chair and Deputy Chair from industry, working closely with local authorities, academia, Make UK and the Department for Business and Trade (DBT).

Dr Jamie Thums, Chair of Made Smarter Adoption East of England said: "On behalf of the East of England Team, I am absolutely delighted with this award to further fund Made Smarter Adoption. As a result, we can extend the support for manufacturing SMEs across the region who seek to embrace digital technologies and create performance gains - essential to improving overall productivity."

Inspiralis is a Norwich Research Park success story that empowers research institutes, pharmaceutical companies and biotechs to develop new therapeutics. The business was signposted to the programme by New Anglia Growth Hub and then supported with a digital roadmap after a consultation with one of MSA's digital manufacturing advisors.

"The roadmap has highlighted actions we can take to digitise our processes and how to capture data more effectively which we need in order to make the business scalable and more efficient," said CEO, Dr Natassja Bush.

"Although we have only just got the report, the process was extremely helpful in that it focused strategic thinking on the operations side of the business and how we need to change to scale. The advisor who was assigned to help us was extremely knowledgeable and quickly identified key things we could adopt to help us scale our operation."

Another beneficiary of MSA's pilot year has been Acle-based THURN Group which delivers cutting-edge marine, offshore and inland waterway survey equipment and develops new bespoke technologies, systems and solutions. 

"The Made Smarter programme has supported THURN Group in a number of ways in 2025, including business support and mentoring, funding for an internship, and a capital grant for a powerful new multi-user computer to enhance our capability in AI and Machine Learning systems for monitoring biodiversity," said Head of Operations, Peter Chinkin.

"At this crucial time of growth for the business, the support from Made Smarter has given us a significant boost to our operating capacity, enabling rapid development of our new Underwater Passive Acoustic Monitoring technologies. Now our whole team have access to cutting-edge solutions to real world problems."

Cllr Fabian Eagle, Norfolk County Council's Cabinet Member for Economic Growth said of the confirmation of funding for 2026/27: "This is an opportunity to support and showcase the value of the manufacturing sector in the East of England and for the county council to continue to lead a national and internationally significant programme.

"This programme is focused on driving the adoption of digital technologies, boosting productivity and increasing efficiencies. It will put our manufacturers at a national and international competitive advantage and support the development and retention of high-value skilled jobs."