FOI release

FOI2026/00463: Women in Innovation Assessor Demographics and Professional Background

Case reference FOI2026/00463

Received 22 May 2026

Published 3 August 2026

Request

Request Received: 22 May 2026

I would like to request aggregated information relating to assessors involved in the Innovate UK Women in Innovation competition for 2026.

Specifically, I request the following anonymised and aggregated information relating to assessors:

1. The gender distribution of assessors.

2. The age distribution of assessors (for example by age bands, if exact ages are not held or cannot be disclosed).

3. The professional background or sector classification of assessors (for example: academic, investor, entrepreneur/founder, clinician, industry specialist, corporate executive, consultant, etc., according to whichever categorisation Innovate UK holds).

4. The proportion of assessors with direct founder or startup experience.

5. Any assessor training materials, guidance documents, or policies relating to:

• unconscious bias,

• equality/diversity/inclusion,

• assessment consistency,

• or evaluation criteria for Women in Innovation programmes.

I am requesting aggregated and anonymised information only and am not seeking the identities of any individual assessors.

Response

Response Sent: 25 June 2026

Full details of this response are available in the attached document.

Documents

• Assessor Briefing Women in Innovation 2025_26.pdf (1.5 MB)
• FOI_Response_Letter - FOI2026_00463_Redacted.pdf (390.6 KB)

This is UK Research and Innovation's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.

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