The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will invest up to £15 million to fund innovation projects in this competition. This funding is part of Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme which is delivered in partnership with Innovate UK.
The aim of this competition is to fund feasibility studies investigating new solutions that will address major on-farm or immediate post farmgate challenges or opportunities.
The funding will support projects to:
- investigate early stage solutions that have the potential to substantially improve the overall productivity, sustainability and resilience of farming, and move existing agricultural sectors to net zero
- prioritise solutions that will have positive outputs for farmers, growers and foresters in commercially relevant situations
- accelerate research and development of new agricultural solutions by actively engaging collaboration with the wider UK research community in the innovation process
Your project must address a significant industry challenge or opportunity in at least one of the four industry subsectors below:
- farmed animals
- plants
- novel food production systems
- bioeconomy and agroforestry
Your proposal must be able to demonstrate how the project will benefit farmers, growers or foresters in England.
Projects must be collaborative and led by a UK business (this can include sole traders or partnerships).
Who can apply?
To lead a collaborative project your organisation must:
Projects must be collaborative. No one partner can account for more than 70% of the eligible costs.
A business can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in two further applications. Any further applications by the same organisation as lead will be made ineligible.
All other businesses and organisations can collaborate in any number of applications.
- be a UK business of any size, including sole traders and partnerships
- be able to evidence that you are an established commercial business, including sole traders and partnerships
- collaborate with other UK registered organisations
- involve at least one other grant claiming business of any size
Eligible projects
Your project must:
Any organisation receiving funding must carry out its project work in the UK, intend to exploit the results in the UK, and spend most of the funding within the UK.
To be an eligible collaboration, you must ensure that no single partner accounts for more than 70% of the total eligible costs.
- have total costs of between £200,000 and £500,000
- last up to 24 months
- start by 1 January 2027
- end by 31 December 2028
Scope and themes
The aim of this competition is to fund feasibility studies investigating new solutions that will address major on-farm or immediate post farmgate challenges or opportunities.
Your solutions must significantly improve:
Your project must be able to demonstrate how the project will benefit farmers, growers or foresters in England.
Your project must address a significant industry challenge or opportunity in at least one of the four industry subsectors below:
We are not funding projects that:
- productivity
- resilience
- sustainability and progression towards low emission farming
- farmed animals
- plants
- novel food production systems
- bioeconomy and agroforestry
- do not benefit farmers, growers or foresters in England
- are equine specific
- involve wild caught fisheries
- involve aquaculture for fish production or human consumption
- involve cellular expression of proteins or cultivated meat
- involve acellular production systems, fermentation systems, bacteria, yeast or fungi for human consumption
- are for the production of crops or plants for medicinal or pharmaceutical use
Briefing and support
Innovate UK will pre-record a briefing for this competition, which will be available to download from the Innovation Funding Service.
If you would like help to find a collaboration partner, contact Innovate UK Business Connect’s Agrifood team.
