By Professor Stuart Semple

Most people approach innovation bids by gathering the required technical detail, refining their project plan, scoping out the application questions and then diving into the writing. The most successful bidders, however, typically begin somewhere else entirely: with the assessors and the scoring guidance those assessors must use. Funding competitions are not open‑ended storytelling exercises; they are structured evaluation processes with a published mark scheme. If you do not write to that mark scheme, you are relying on luck rather than design.

Assessors are expert gatekeepers. Their job is to apply defined criteria to score each question, and they can only award marks for what is explicitly written in your application, not for what they think you meant. This is why the assessor guidance (which most funders make openly available), is so important. This sets out in clear terms the scoring scales assessors must use, and what each band (e.g. 5-6 vs 7-8 vs 9-10) means in practice. They explain what a high‑scoring answer looks like and how a weak answer falls short of that. Not reading these documents line by line is like sitting an exam without looking at the marking rubric.

Thinking like an assessor means accepting four things. First, they judge against criteria so if a point is not clearly linked to the question and backed by evidence, they have no basis to award marks. Second, they need explicit, structured evidence. Vague claims about “huge markets” or “world‑leading teams” do not land well; concrete figures, and references to evidence these, do. Third, they often operate in a world of high cut‑off scores and low success rates, so any missing element – a weak exploitation route, unclear risks, thin IP – becomes a legitimate reason to reduce your score. Finally, assessors bring different levels of knowledge and familiarity with your specific field and innovation, so you need to write in a way that is accessible (and persuasive) to all of them.

The most practical way to respond to this reality is to treat the scoring criteria as your writing blueprint. For each question, break the guidance into a checklist of what “good” looks like, then design your answer so that every item appears clearly and explicitly. Use structure and signposting that make it easy for a busy reader to see where you have addressed each point. When you review, do it with the assessor guidance in hand and ask, honestly, what score you would give yourself.
Ultimately, strong innovation bid writing is about a mindset shift. Instead of asking “How do we tell our story?”, ask “How do we make it effortless for a busy assessor to award us top marks against every criterion?” Once you write from that perspective, your bids become clearer, more focused and much more competitive.