About the Programme
Are you thinking about additional ways to invest in your future and expand employability? RGU Accelerator 2026 Impact North is launching during Scotland's first National Innovation Week! Back due to popular demand, the University's central flagship development programme is here for year 8. Excitingly, it will feature collaborative cohorts running in tandem with Aberdeen and Islands based teams, nurturing early stage innovative ideas across Scotland and supporting economic development.
If you have an early-stage innovative idea, the programme can offer you five-months of flexible entrepreneurial training around work and studies, access to mentors and the opportunity to access equity-free seed funding.
Benefits of the Programme
Main benefits of the upcoming 2026 programme include:
- Equity Free Funding - seed £3,000 and thousands of pounds in showcase prizes,
- City-Centre co-working space,
- Mentoring, coaching and personal development,
- Ecosystem network access, including 3rd sector,
- Test applied research in industry over 6 months,
- Collaboration with Islands – Orkney, Shetland & Outer Hebrides,
- Pathway to research commercialization,
- Flexible sessions, gain entrepreneurial skills and confidence.
Previous participants have gone on to raise over £1.6 million in economic impact, won national awards and launched ventures. International students are welcome to apply and with our support can apply for Innovator Founders Visa to help start their business in the UK. Our previous participants on the programme have had the opportunity to showcase their achievements at our live events.
Programme Eligibility
If you are interested in applying for the competition, our criteria is:
- To participate in Aberdeen based cohort the business must be RGU staff, students or alumni within 10 years of graduation.
- To participate in Islands cohort the business must be from Orkney, Shetland or Outer Hebrides.
- The business must be early-stage and have the intention of registering an entity (as a company, social enterprise or otherwise) as a result of the programme.
- The business must be early-stage and must not have raised more than £100,000 in investment or revenue
- The business must intend to have at least one founder working on the business full time within twelve months of the end of the programme
In addition to our formal eligibility criteria, judges may consider applicants wider context such as employment status or barriers to working in order to be inclusive and offer places to applicants who may benefit most from the programme.
Programme Dates
All participants of the programme are required to attend scheduled sessions and accelerator events for the duration of the programme from December 2025 to June 2026. All dates for the next cohort will be confirmed once accepted into the programme.
The programme typically starts with an intensive bootcamp weekend and will then involve multiple evening and weekend sessions during that period.
Apply Now
Applications open 22 September 2025.
If you are interested in applying for a future accelerator programme or if you need any further information email
Application Guidance
In order to be successful for the programme, we will look for lots of different factors to be covered in your application form:
- Understanding of the problem: We want to see that you have a clear, realistic and demanding problem to solve, you can use evidence of how impactful this is for customers such as research or interviews.
- Ideas which are innovative: We are looking for your idea to be easy to understand, unique and solving a real problem. We want ideas which show innovation and can scale beyond the region. However, applicants must accept that their ideas might change as part of the process.
- Potential for growth in the market: We are looking for teams to have an idea of who their target market is and have done some research on if there are competitors. An investable high-growth company needs a sizeable market where there is high earning potential.
- Testing of the business model: We are looking for some evidence that the business could make money and that the founders may have made some work towards their vision. This could be through revenue, users, customer interviews, a demo, a rough prototype, a patent, or other research. While we accept early stage ideas, a little testing can strengthen your application.
- Strong entrepreneurial teams: We are looking for groups of ambitious and creative entrepreneurs with the right attitude and experience to run their business. We value team over everything else, and you need to be able to take critical feedback and adapt your business.
Programme Funders
The RGU StartUp Accelerator
2026 is delivered by RGU’s Entrepreneurship & Innovation Group and Islands Team funded by SFC & KEIFF.
Contacts
If you have questions about RGU’s startup support or accelerator programmes, get in touch on innovation@rgu.ac.uk