The flagship Offshore Wind Growth Partnership (OWGP) was set up in 2019 to support the growth of the UK supply chain through improvements in productivity and competitiveness. The programme was established as part of the Sector Deal and responds to recommendations in the Whitmarsh Review.

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OWGP is funded by the OWIC members and has a budget of £100m up to 2030. It is delivered by a dedicated team at Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult.

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OWGP supports the supply chain through a combination of grant funding and business transformation services. The grants provide funds to enable companies to grow their capacity and capability whilst the business transformation programmes provide access to business improvement specialists to improve competitiveness. The grant funding programme currently consists of smaller innovation grants (£25k to £100k) for the development of new products and services and larger development grants (£100k to £1m) to support company growth.

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The business transformation programme provides access to sector specific business support for new market entrants and companies with high growth ambitions through the Wind Expert Support Toolkit (WEST) programme. This is a foundation level programme to increase the number of UK companies winning work in the sector. For larger companies with a turnover of over £5m, OWGP is offering access to the Sharing in Growth programme that provides long term support to improve business performance from the board room to the manufacturing facility. Over 40 companies have now benefited from the WEST programme and 8 companies are currently participating in Sharing in Growth.

OWGP has an independent board of directors to provide strong governance and the programme is delivered by a dedicated team from the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult. This structure ensures accountability but allows the programme to be delivered efficiently with the agility to respond to supply chain needs.

The OWGP grant and business transformation activities are complemented by direct supply chain engagement activities led by the developers. Examples of these can be found in the Collaborating for Growth Playbook.