Ni and Ni base alloys are good candidate substrate materials in the production of coated conductors due to the development of strong cube texture following heavy cold working and recrystallisation. To increase the overall current density of the YBa2Cu3O7-delta (YBCO) coated conductor either the superconducting YBCO film thickness should be increased or the substrate thickness should be reduced. As the quality of the YBCO film deteriorates with increasing thickness the alternative is to reduce the substrate thickness. The reduction of the substrate tape thickness is limited by the material strength. In this contribution, two ways of substrate strengthening are proposed. By solid solution strengthening with 12 at. % Cr, the tape yield strength can be enhanced up to a factor of three in comparison to pure Ni. The strengthening is limited by the solute concentration at which the cube texture deteriorates. Another way of strengthening the substrates is by introducing finely dispersed particles into the tape matrix following recrystallisation through internal oxidation of Ni-Al alloys. The room temperature yield strength of these tapes reaches up to three times the value of pure Ni. The present paper reports the efforts in improving cube texture in Ni, Ni-Al, Ni-Cr, Ni-V, and Ni-Cr-Al alloy substrates of 80mum, 40mum and 20 mum thickness and also the tensile properties of these tapes.