Leicestershire Innovation Festival returns for 2026
Added by Love Business East Midlands | 30 October 2025
UPDATED: 30 October 2025
The eighth Leicestershire Innovation Festival will take place at venues across the city and county in March 2026.
The week-long festival will launch with an event led by the Business Gateway Growth Hub on Monday 9 March.
LIF26 will feature 10 workshops, seminars and conferences, both online and in person, at venues across Leicester and Leicestershire. Partners are invited to express their interest now, with a schedule of events to be announced over coming weeks and months. The festival is an opportunity to showcase expertise, engage with key stakeholders, and drive productivity within the local business community.
Leicestershire Innovation Festival launched in 2018 and has since grown into an annual fixture on the regional business calendar.
It forms part of a programme of innovation-related activities across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, including the recently-launched Leicestershire Innovation Advisory Group, which brings together leading figures from business, education, nonprofit, and local government.
Since its launch, the festival has brought together businesses of all sizes and sectors, providing a platform to showcase opportunities for enhancing productivity and driving both new-to-market and new-to-business innovation.
The schedule for LIF26 includes a week-long series of funded morning and afternoon events. The Business Gateway Growth Hub is now accepting expressions of interest from event hosts and will then publish a full schedule of activities. Sessions will focus on how SMEs in the region can take practical steps to grow their productivity and profitability.
Event hosts in previous years have included the Growth Hub, De Montfort University, British Business Bank, Innovate UK, University of Leicester, Charnwood Campus and Loughborough University.
Event formats can include thought leadership presentations, training sessions, fireside chats, panels, networking, or joint expos and can be in-person, online or hybrid.
Proposals will be evaluated to ensure they align with the festival’s purpose of promoting innovation, encouraging new ideas and increasing business productivity in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.
The purpose of LIF events is to contribute towards an innovation ecosystem which underpins a prosperous regional economy driven by businesses and communities that are productive, inclusive, and sustainable.
The deadline for expressions of interest in hosting events is 5pm on 5 December 2025, with applications to be submitted here. https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=cdYz4ZCnbUan9UtTXt75T6vcQ2ORT-BGjVt5sSGxyxFUMEQ2QVlSMVlVUDdMR0VTRzFOVFFVT01ZUC4u&route=shorturl
