Funding competition Farming Futures R&D Fund: low emissions farming

UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £12.5 million for Industrial research projects from the Farming Futures R&D Fund, a part of the Farming Innovation Programme.

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Competition sections

Description

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has allocated up to £12.5 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.

Defra and UKRI will work in collaboration to deliver a portfolio of projects that meet the objectives of the Farming Innovation Programme.

The aim of this competition is to fund collaborative projects that will develop new solutions to support UK farming working towards achieving low emissions. These must address major on-farm or immediate post farmgate challenges or opportunities.

Projects in this competition must:

  • develop ambitious solutions that will reduce emissions in existing farming practices
  • carry out a life cycle assessment (LCA) for the solution developed
  • demonstrate impact and measure of carbon as a number to facilitate foot printing and potential trading, but other emissions must not be ignored
  • demonstrate and measure wider environmental benefits, as contributors to low emission farming
  • encourage dissemination and knowledge exchange to the wider sector and increase the maturity or market readiness of emerging solutions
  • ensure concepts are closely aligned with industry priorities to deliver business orientated, transformative opportunities

Projects must evidence how the solution will benefit farmers, growers or foresters in England.

Any successful projects may have a Defra appointed third party, carry out an independent LCA on the solution towards the end of the project.

This competition has a two stage assessment. If your project is assessed as eligible, you may be invited to present at interview. The selection of successful projects will be decided after interviews.

In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process. This competition has a funding limit, so we may not be able to fund all the proposed projects. It may be the case that your project scores highly but we are still unable to fund it.

This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated in this Innovate UK competition brief. We cannot guarantee other government, or third party sites will always show the correct competition information.

Funding type

Grant

Project size

Your project’s total eligible costs must be between £1 million and £2.5 million.

Accessibility and Inclusion

We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and are committed to making our application process accessible to everyone. This includes making reasonable adjustments, for people who have a disability or a long term condition and face barriers applying to us.

You can contact us at any time to ask for guidance.

We recommend you contact us at least 15 working days before this competition’s closing date to allow us to put the most suitable support in place. The support we can provide may be limited if you contact us close to the competition deadline.

You can contact Innovate UK by email or call 0300 321 4357. Our phone lines are open from 9am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm UK time, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).

Who can apply

Text update 12 May 2025: 'Lead organisation' and 'project team' details have been updated to include sole traders and partnerships.

Your project

If your application passes the interview selection, any awards given to primary agricultural producers are subject to the green box exemption under the WTO Agreement on Agriculture.

You can see further guidance on green box subsidies here: WTO Guidance for support in Agriculture. Applicants receiving this type of support must ensure that there is minimal to no distortion of trade and comply with the requirements of Annex 2 of the Agriculture Agreement.

Your project must:

  • have total costs between £1 million and £2.5 million
  • last between 30 and 36 months
  • start by 1 January 2026
  • end by 31 December 2028
  • carry out all of its project work in the UK
  • intend to exploit the results from or in England

Projects must always start on the first of the month, even if this is a non-working day. You must not start your project until your Grant Offer Letter has been approved by Innovate UK. Any delays within Project Setup may mean we need to delay your project start date.

You must only include eligible project costs in your application. See our overview of eligible project costs. For specific guidance, see the eligibility section in this competition.

Lead organisation

To lead a project your organisation must:

  • be a UK business of any size including sole traders and partnerships, and active farming, growing or forestry businesses, a UK academic institution or a research and technology organisation (RTO)
  • collaborate with other UK registered organisations
  • involve at least one grant claiming business of any size

If the lead organisation is an academic institution or an RTO, it must collaborate with two businesses of any size.

More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules.

Project team

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following:

  • be a UK business of any size including, sole traders and partnerships and active farming, growing or forestry businesses

or a UK registered:

  • academic institution
  • charity
  • not for profit
  • public sector organisation
  • research and technology organisation (RTO)

The farming, growing or forestry business must be able to evidence that they are an established commercial business and have a UK bank account.

Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service (IFS) by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once partners have accepted the invitation, they will be asked to login or to create an account in IFS. They are responsible for entering their own project costs in the application.

To be an eligible collaboration, the lead and at least one other organisation must:

  • apply for funding when entering their costs into the application
  • include rationale for the collaboration and describe the structure in your application
  • ensure any one partner does not account for more than 70% of the total eligible costs

Subcontractors

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.

Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK and you must select them through your usual procurement process.

You can use subcontractors from overseas but must make the case in your application as to why you cannot use subcontractors from the UK.

You must provide a detailed rationale, evidence of the potential UK contractors you approached and the reasons why they were unable to work with you. We will not accept a cheaper cost as a sufficient reason to use an overseas subcontractor.

All subcontractor costs must be justified and appropriate to the total project costs.

Number of applications

A business, academic institution or research and technology organisation (RTO) can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in two further applications.

If an organisation is not leading any application, it can collaborate in any number of applications.

Sanctions

This competition will not fund you, or provide any financial benefit to any individual or entities directly or indirectly involved with you, which would expose Innovate UK or any direct or indirect beneficiary of funding from Innovate UK to UK Sanctions. For example, through any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any entity as lead, partner or subcontractor related to these countries, administrations and terrorist groups.

Use of animals in research and innovation

Innovate UK expects and supports the provision and safeguarding of welfare standards for animals used in research and innovation, according to best practice and up to date guidance.

Applicants must ensure that all of the proposed work within projects, both that in the UK and internationally, will comply with the UKRI guidance on the use of animals in research and innovation.

Any projects selected for funding which involve animals will be asked to provide additional information on welfare and ethical considerations, as well as compliance with any relevant legislation as part of the project start-up process. This information will be reviewed before an award is made.

Previous applications

You cannot use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.

We will not award you funding if you have:

Innovate UK may withhold a grant payment at any time if you have any outstanding sums due to us in relation to other projects.

Subsidy control (and State aid where applicable)

This competition provides funding in line with the Subsidy Control Act 2022. Further information about the Subsidy requirements can be found within the Subsidy Control Act 2022 (legislation.gov.uk).

Innovate UK is unable to award organisations that are considered to be in financial difficulty. We will conduct financial viability and eligibility tests to confirm this is not the case following the application stage.

EU State aid rules now only apply in limited circumstances. Please see the Windsor Framework to check if these rules apply to your organisation.

In the ‘Project details’ section of your application you will be asked questions to indicate if State Aid or Subsidy applies to your organisation.

Further Information

If you are unsure about your obligations under the Subsidy Control Act 2022 or the State aid rules, you should take independent legal advice. We are unable to advise on individual eligibility or legal obligations.

You must always make sure that the funding awarded to you is compliant with all current Subsidy Control legislation applicable in the United Kingdom.

This aims to regulate any advantage granted by a public sector body which threatens to, or actually distorts competition in the United Kingdom or any other country or countries.

This award is classified as a Subsidy which does not form part of your Minimal Financial Assistance or De Minimis allowance.

Funding

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has allocated up to £12.5 million to fund innovation projects. This competition is in partnership with and delivered by Innovate UK. Funding will be in the form of a grant.

If your organisation’s work on the project is commercial or economic, your funding request must not exceed the limits below. These limits apply even if your organisation normally acts non-economically but for the purpose of this project will be undertaking commercial or economic activity.

The balance between your total eligible project costs and the amount of grant awarded must be funded by the organisation receiving the grant.

For industrial research projects, you can get funding for your eligible project costs of:

  • up to 70% if you are a micro or small organisation
  • up to 60% if you are a medium sized organisation
  • up to 50% if you are a large organisation

Note: a minimum of 50% of any grant requested by farmers, growers or foresters in the project, must be allocated to farmers, growers or foresters based in England.

For more information on company sizes, please refer to the company accounts guidance.

If you are applying for an award funded under State aid Regulations, the definitions are set out in the European Commission Recommendation of 6 May 2003.

Innovate UK may revoke our decision to provide funding without notice if government commitment for this initiative is withdrawn.

Research participation

The research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 40% of the total eligible project costs. If your consortium contains more than one research organisation undertaking non-economic activity, this maximum is shared between them. Of that 40% you can get funding for your eligible project costs of up to:

  • 80% of full economic costs (FEC) if you are a Je-S registered institution such as an academic
  • 100% of your eligible project costs if you are an RTO, charity, not for profit organisation, public sector organisation or research organisation

Eligibility criteria for claiming 80% of FEC funding

1.Research organisations using the Je-S system must submit their costs through the Je-S system which calculates the 80% FEC figure.

2.On IFS, only the 80% FEC output should be entered at 100% funding.

3.Applicants do not need to show the remaining 20% on the finance table.

To find out more see our: Cost Guidance for Academics.

Your proposal

The aim of this competition is to fund collaborative projects that will develop new solutions to support UK farming working towards achieving low emissions. These must address major on-farm or immediate post farmgate challenges or opportunities.

Your project must:

  • develop ambitious solutions that will reduce emissions in existing farming practices
  • carry out a life cycle assessment (LCA) for the solution developed
  • demonstrate impact and measure of carbon as a number to facilitate foot printing and potential trading, but other emissions must not be ignored
  • demonstrate and measure wider environmental benefits, as contributors to low emission farming
  • encourage dissemination and knowledge exchange to the wider sector and increase the maturity or market readiness of emerging solutions
  • ensure concepts are closely aligned with industry priorities to deliver business orientated, transformative opportunities

Your project must also demonstrate how the solution will significantly improve on-farm:

  • productivity
  • resilience
  • sustainability and progression towards low emission farming​

Projects must evidence how the solution will benefit farmers, growers or foresters in England.

Portfolio approach

We want to fund a variety of projects across different technologies, markets, themes and sectors. We call this a portfolio approach

Specific themes

Your project must address at least one of the following five key areas:

Regenerative farming: for example, integration of regenerative techniques into productive systems for improved soil health, water quality and biodiversity.

Energy: for example, increasing efficiency in controlled environment agriculture, improved materials for glasshouses, or energy efficient machinery.

Methanisation: (or biomethanisation) is a process based on the natural fermentation of organic matter to produce biogas. Methanisation provides a use for organic waste, producing renewable energy and organic fertiliser. The biogas obtained from methanisation can be used directly to produce heat and electricity and consideration must be provided for the handling of any CH4 and CO2 bi-products, with a focus on on-farm utilisation.

Reducing GHG emission in livestock production: for example, methane inhibiting feed additives, novel housing systems or enhanced breeding.

Innovations to support land management: including productive paludicultural systems; agroforestry, energy crops and biomass production, deployment of biochar for carbon sequestration through application to land.

Research categories

We will fund industrial research projects as defined in the guidance on categories of research.

Projects we will not fund

We are not funding projects that:

  • are not addressing low emission farming priorities as listed in the scope section
  • are not measuring the GHG emissions impact from their innovation
  • are equine specific
  • involve wild caught fisheries
  • involve aquaculture for fish production or human consumption
  • are for the production of crops or plants for medicinal or pharmaceutical use
  • do not benefit farmers, growers or foresters in England

We cannot fund projects that are:

  • dependent on export performance, for example, giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it exports a certain quantity of bread to another country
  • dependent on domestic inputs usage, for example, giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it uses 50% UK flour in their product

5 May 2025
Competition opens
8 May 2025
Recorded applicant briefing: watch the recording
Briefing slides are now available to download from Supporting Information.
8 May 2025
Online Consortium building event at 10am: register to attend
25 June 2025 11:00am
Competition closes
7 August 2025
Invite to interview
15 September 2025
Interview panel start
26 September 2025
Interview panel end
10 October 2025
Applicants notified
1 January 2026
Project start by

Before you start

You must read the guidance on applying for a competition on the Innovation Funding Service before you start.

Before submitting, it is the lead applicant’s responsibility to make sure:

  • that all the information provided in the application is correct
  • your proposal meets the eligibility and scope criteria
  • all sections of the application are marked as complete
  • that all partners have completed all assigned sections and accepted the terms and conditions (T&Cs)

You can reopen your application once submitted, up until the competition deadline. You must resubmit the application before the competition deadline.

What we ask you

The application is split into three sections:

  1. Project details.
  2. Application questions.
  3. Finances.

Accessibility and Inclusion

We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and are committed to making our application process accessible to everyone. This includes making reasonable adjustments, for people who have a disability or a long-term condition and face barriers applying to us.

You can contact us at any time to ask for guidance.

We recommend you contact us at least 15 working days before this competition’s closing date to allow us to put the most suitable support in place. The support we can provide may be limited if you contact us close to the competition deadline.

You can contact Innovate UK by email or call 0300 321 4357. Our phone lines are open from 9am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm UK time, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).

1. Project details

This section provides background for your application and is not scored.

Application team

Decide which organisations will work with you on your project and invite people from those organisations to help complete the application.

Application details

Give your project’s title, start date and duration.

Project summary

Describe your project briefly and be clear how the solution you are developing will reduce emissions in existing farming practices. We use this section to assign the right experts to assess your application so you must be clear about which of the five key areas you are working to address.

Your answer can be up to 400 words long.

Public description

Describe your project in detail and in a way that you are happy to see published. Do not include any commercially sensitive information. If we award your project funding, we will publish this description. This can happen before you start your project.

Your answer can be up to 200 words long.

Scope

Describe how your project fits the scope of the competition by:

  • indicating which on-farm or immediate post farmgate challenges or opportunities you are addressing
  • identifying how your solution will support and demonstrate UK farming working towards achieving low emissions

If your project is not in scope, it will not be sent for assessment. We will tell you the reason why.

Your answer can be up to 400 words long.

2. Application questions

The assessors will score all your answers apart from questions 1, 2 and 3. You will receive feedback for each scored question. Find out more about how our assessors assess and how we select applications for funding.

You must answer all questions. Your answer to each question can be up to 400 words long.

You must not include any website addresses or links (URLs) in your answers. If you do, your application will be made ineligible.

Question 1. Applicant location (not scored)

You must state the name and full registered address of your organisation and the partners or subcontractors working on your project.

You must also provide a list of any farmers, growers or foresters requesting grant funding in the project.

Note: a minimum of 50% of any grant requested by farmers, growers or foresters in the project, must be allocated to farmers, growers or foresters based in England.

We are collecting this information to understand more about the geographical location of all applicants.

Question 2. Animal testing (not scored)

Will your project involve any trials with animals or animal testing?

You must select one option:

  • Yes
  • No

We will only support innovation projects conducted to the highest standards of animal welfare.

Further information for proposals involving animal testing is available at the UKRI Good Research Hub and NC3R’s animal welfare guidance.

Question 3. Permits and licences (not scored)

Will you have the correct permits and licences in place to carry out your project?

We are unable to fund projects which do not have the correct permits or licences in place by your project start date.

You must select one option:

  • Yes
  • No
  • In process of being applied for
  • Not applicable

Question 4. Challenge and ambition

What is the existing agricultural challenge you are addressing, and specifically which emissions are you looking to reduce?

Describe what you expect to achieve from your solution and the overall impact it could have in supporting UK farmers to achieve low emission farming.

Describe:

  • specific greenhouse gases (GHG) reduction targets and the scale of reduction being sought
  • how you will ensure your targets and scale of reduction are met
  • how your project aims to contribute to achieving low emission farming goals
  • the farming or agricultural problem, need, technological challenge or market opportunity identified
  • the wider economic, social, environmental, cultural or political challenges which are influential in creating the opportunity such as incoming regulations
  • how your project outputs would deliver significant improvements in productivity, resilience and sustainability
  • what benefits English farmers, growers or foresters will gain from your project

Question 5. Approach and innovation

What novel approach will you take, and what additional research will you need to support your project?

Explain:

  • what the approach or innovation is, and how will it address the identified problem
  • if you are proposing a single innovative solution or a combination of innovative solutions
  • how your project will push the boundaries of current leading edge solutions
  • previous research or development which is the basis of the solution being provided
  • what type of size, production environment and location the deployment potential will be tested and trialled in
  • how your project will complement existing technologies to deliver a more efficient and sustainable farm production system

You can submit one appendix to support your answer. It can include diagrams and charts. It must be a PDF no larger than 10MB. It can be up to two A4 pages and must be legible at 100% zoom.

Question 6. Team and resources

Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

Explain:

  • the main partners in the project, the relationships between partners and the rationale for working together
  • the roles, skills and experience of all members of the project team that are relevant to the approach you will be taking
  • the resources, equipment and facilities needed for the project and how you will access them
  • the details of any vital external parties, including subcontractors, who you will need to work with to successfully carry out the project
  • how you will work with farmers, growers and foresters throughout the project to ensure outputs remain focussed on end users needs
  • any roles you will need to recruit for

You can submit one appendix, with a short summary of the main people working on the project to support your answer. It must be a PDF no larger than 10MB. It can be up to two A4 pages and must be legible at 100% zoom.

Question 7: Project impact and life cycle assessment

How will your project impact be measured through a life cycle assessment (LCA)?

Describe:

  • a summary of your key deliverables during the project
  • the impact of your solution to reducing emissions and the economic benefits you expect, such as productivity increases and import substitution
  • how you have determined that the proposed solution will not widen any farming inequalities
  • how you will carry out the LCA for the solution developed to demonstrate impact, and measure carbon as a number, to facilitate footprinting and potential trading
  • the metrics you propose to use, how you will measure emissions and quantify reductions relative to existing practices, and how you will ensure the reliability and validity of this data
  • the impact across the food supply chain and how you will collaborate with other innovation systems or broader requirements such as sustainability, traceability and transformation partnerships

Question 8. Outputs and exploitation

How will you exploit and disseminate your project results?

Provide a brief summary of your consortium exploitation plan.

Describe:

  • your expected project outputs, including products, services, processes and capabilities
  • how will you work with wider sector and other stakeholders and how this will inform your knowledge exchange and dissemination plans
  • the structure and dynamics of the target markets, including customer segmentation, together with predicted growth rates within clear timeframes

You must submit an exploitation plan as an appendix to support your answer. It must be a PDF, up to three A4 pages long and no larger than 10MB in size. The font must be legible at 100% zoom.

You can include one or more of the following in your exploitation plan:

  • an executive summary including a short context of the business proposal and how it will impact the commercial prospects of partners
  • the expected outputs of the project in terms of new products, processes, technology adoption or business models at the end of the project compared to the start of the project
  • your likely customers, customer benefits, unique selling points, market segmentation, geographic territories where exploitation is to be targeted
  • the routes to market or supply chains for products, technologies, services or licences, particularly as this extends to the partners in the project
  • your plans for marketing channels as appropriate
  • for each output, quantify financial returns as far as is possible over the period two to five years post-project, this must include details such as possible price points and cost of sales
  • the barriers to market, including competitors or any likely follow on work or necessary investment to further develop the technologies to commercialisation
  • your plans for intellectual property (IP) protection and accessibility
  • your plans for dissemination, which are mandatory for research technology organisations (RTOs) and university partners
  • technology and market roadmaps

Your exploitation plan can be updated during the project, subject to agreement by UKRI.

Question 9: Benefits realisation

What benefits is your project expected to deliver to external parties and over what timescale?

Explain:

  • how inputs and activities are expected to lead to outputs and outcomes, based on information provided in your logic model
  • your Theory of Change, the methodology which maps the assumptions which inform planned interventions
  • how your project will contribute to targets for low emissions and reduction of waste
  • how your project fulfils its environmental, sustainability and resilience objectives
  • how your project will benefit the productivity, safety and welfare expectations of farmers, growers or foresters
  • what the costs are associated with these benefits and how they compare to the cost of existing practices or services
  • what socio-economic, cultural and political benefits do you expect to achieve as a result of your proposed solution

Distinguish between benefits you expect to deliver, both inside and outside the project consortium, which may include benefits to farmers, growers or foresters, and the wider agrifood industry, the UK economy and others.

You must download the logic model template and guidance document. Once completed, submit as one appendix to support your answer. It must be uploaded to this question as a PDF. The font must be legible at 100% zoom

Question 10. Project management

How will you manage your project effectively?

Explain:

  • the main work packages of your project, indicating the lead partner assigned to each and the total cost of each one
  • your approach to project management, identifying any major tools and mechanisms you will use to get a successful and innovative project outcome
  • the management reporting lines
  • your project plan in enough detail to identify any links or dependencies between work packages or milestones

You must submit a project plan or Gantt chart as an appendix to support your answer. It must be a PDF no larger than 10MB. It can be up to two A4 pages and must be legible at 100% zoom.

Question 11. Risks

What are the main risks for this project?

Explain:

  • the main risks and uncertainties of the project, including the technical, commercial, managerial and environmental risks
  • how you will mitigate these risks
  • any project inputs that are critical to completion, such as resources, expertise, and data sets
  • any output likely to be subject to regulatory requirements, certification, ethical issues and other requirements identified, and how you will manage this

You must submit a risk register as an appendix to support your answer. It must be a PDF no larger than 10MB. It can be up to two A4 pages and must be legible at 100% zoom.

Question 12. Added value

How will this public funding help you to accelerate or enhance your approach to developing your project towards commercialisation? What impact would this award have on the organisations involved?

Explain:

  • what advantages public funding would offer your project, for example: appeal to investors, more partners, reduced risk or a faster route to market
  • the likely impact of the project outcomes on the organisations involved
  • what other routes of investment or means of support you have already engaged with and why they were not suitable
  • how any existing or potential investment or support will be used in conjunction with the grant funding
  • what your project would look like without public funding
  • how this project would change the R&D activities of all the organisations involved

Question 13. Costs and value for money

How much will the project cost and how does it represent value for money for the team and the taxpayer?

In terms of your project goals, explain:

  • your total eligible project costs
  • the grant you are requesting
  • how each partner will finance their contributions to your project
  • how this project represents value for money for you and the taxpayer
  • how it compares to what you would spend your money on otherwise
  • the balance of costs and grant across the project partners
  • any subcontractor costs and why they are critical to your project

3. Finances

Each organisation in your project must complete their own project costs, organisation details and funding details in the application. Academic institutions must complete and upload a Je-S form.

For an overview on what costs you can claim, see our project costs guidance. Note: this is general guidance, for specific guidance please see the eligibility section in this competition. You can also view our application finances video.

Assessment

Your application will be reviewed by three independent assessors based on the content of your application and their skills or expertise relevant to your project. All of the scores awarded will count towards the total score used to make the funding decision unless you are notified otherwise.

You can find out more about our assessment process in the General Guidance.

Interviews

If your application passes the first stage of assessment, you may be invited to attend an interview, where you must give a presentation. Your interview will take place online. The interviews will be held between 15 September 2025 and 26 September 2025. The date and time of your interview will be included in your invitation.

If you require any reasonable adjustments to support you at the interview you must email us at support@iuk.ukri.org within three days of receiving your invitation.

Before the interview and by the deadline stated in the invitation email, you:

  • must send a list of who will attend the interview
  • must send your interview presentation slides
  • can send a written response to the assessors’ feedback

List of attendees

Agree the list with your consortium. Up to nine people from your project can attend, ideally one person from each organisation. They must all be available on all published interview dates. We are unable to reschedule slots once allocated.

Presentation slides

Your interview presentation must:

  • use Microsoft PowerPoint
  • be no longer than 20 minutes
  • have no more than 20 slides
  • not include any video or embedded web links

You cannot change the presentation after you submit it or bring any additional materials to the interview.

Written response to assessor feedback

This is optional and is an opportunity to answer the assessors’ concerns. It can:

  • be up to two A4 pages in a single PDF or Word document
  • include charts or diagrams

Interview

After your presentation the panel will spend 30 minutes asking questions. You will be expected to answer based on the information you provided in your application form, presentation and the response to feedback.

After your interview

The panellists will individually score your application and these will be averaged for your overall interview score. This score will supersede the one you received from initial assessment unless stated otherwise in the competition brief. We will notify you whether you have been successful or not by email and you will receive feedback on your interview within a week of notification.

Background and further information

This funding is from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) Farming Innovation Programme and is being delivered in partnership with Innovate UK.

The Farming Innovation Programme will fund ambitious research and development projects to overcome barriers and create a more productive and sustainable sector.

Projects will benefit England’s farmers, growers, foresters and other businesses to conduct R&D to help boost productivity, enhance sustainable practices, improve environmental outcomes and reduce carbon emissions in England’s agricultural and horticultural sectors.

The Farming Innovation Programme provides a key means to deliver Defra's key missions, notably boosting food security, promoting economic growth and ensuring nature’s recovery. This gives farming the opportunity to contribute significantly to environmental goals, including addressing climate change.

The Farming Innovation Programme is made up of three funds. The industry led R&D Partnerships Fund, Farming Futures R&D Fund, and the ADOPT Fund.

This competition is part of the Farming Futures R&D Fund.

Defra’s partnership with Innovate UK

Defra and Innovate UK have developed a strong partnership for agrifood and agriculture innovation. This is built upon the success of Innovate UK’s Transforming Food Production (TFP) Challenge and our shared ambition for a more productive, sustainable, and low carbon agrifood sector. We are taking this partnership to the next level with Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme.

Defra and Innovate UK are looking to fund bold ideas and encourage collaboration between businesses, researchers, farmers, growers or foresters to deliver solutions for a more productive, environmentally sustainable and resilient sector.

Briefing recording and slides

Briefing recording: watch the recording
Briefing slides are available to download here:

What happens if you receive a grant offer

If you have passed your interview assessment and have received an email with a grant offer, you will be asked to complete the project set up process on the Innovation Funding Service (IFS).

We will ask for information that will allow us to undertake mandatory checks on your organisation and the eligibility of your costs, as well as review the documentation for your project.

You must follow the unique link embedded in your email notification. This takes you to your project's dedicated IFS Set Up portal, where we gather the information required to set up your project.

Watch our video on what steps there are before a project starts or read more about Project Setup in our general guidance.

If your application is unsuccessful

If you are unsuccessful with your application this time, you can view feedback from the assessors. This will be available to you on your IFS portal following notification.

Sometimes your application will have scored well, and you will receive positive comments from the assessors. You may be unsuccessful as your average score was not above the funding threshold or your project has not been selected under the portfolio approach if this is applied for this competition.

We would like to remind you that eligible non-funded business can still benefit from fully funded and bespoke support from the Innovate UK Business Growth service.

Find a project partner

If you want help to find a project partner, contact Innovate UK Business Connect.

Support for SMEs from Innovate UK Business Growth service

Innovate UK Business Growth helps innovation focused businesses make the best strategic choices and access the right resources, in order to grow and ultimately achieve scale.

Our innovation and growth specialists provide our fully funded and bespoke support to clients nationwide. Visit the service’s website to discover whether you could benefit from this advisory support, which is available to Innovate UK funded and non-funded businesses alike.

Protecting your innovation

A Secure Innovation campaign has been developed to help founders and leaders of innovative startups protect their technology, competitive advantage, and reputation.

This was developed by UK’s National Protective Security Authority (NPSA) and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).

Data sharing

This competition is jointly operated by Innovate UK, and Defra (each an ‘agency’).

Any relevant information submitted and produced during the application process concerning your application can be shared by one agency with the other, for its individual storage, processing and use.

Innovate UK may also share any relevant information submitted and produced during the application process concerning your application with Innovate UK’s regional UK third parties. For more information see how we handle grant applicant and grant holder data.

This means that any information given to or generated by Innovate UK in respect of your application may be passed on to Defra and vice versa. This would include, but is not restricted to:

  • the information stated on the application, including the personal details of all applicants
  • scoring and feedback on the application
  • information received during the management and administration of the grant, such as Monitoring Service Provider reports and Independent Accountant Reports

Innovate UK and Defra are directly accountable to you for their holding and processing of your information, including any personal data and confidential information. Data is held in accordance with their own policies. Accordingly, Innovate UK, Innovate UK Business Connect and Defra will be data controllers for personal data submitted during the application.

Innovate UK’s Privacy Policy

Innovate UK Business Connect Privacy Policy

Defra’s Privacy Policy

Innovate UK complies with the requirements of UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, and is committed to upholding data protection legislation, and protecting your information in accordance with data protection principles.

The Information Commissioner’s Office also has a useful guide for organisations, which outlines the data protection principles.

Contact us

If you need more information about how to apply or you want to submit your application in Welsh, email support@iuk.ukri.org or call 0300 321 4357.

Our phone lines are open from 9am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm UK time, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).

Innovate UK or any of our partners will not tolerate abusive language in any written or verbal correspondence, applications, social media or any other form that might affect staff.

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