Key Features
UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £5 million for projects to close product technology gaps that are preventing movement towards commercial acceptance, scale up and manufacture. This funding is from Innovate UK.
Programme: Innovate UK
Award: Share of up to £5 million
Opens: 30th Mar 2026
Closes: 3rd Jun 2026
Innovate UK will invest up to £5 million in this competition to support Agri-tech innovators advance product performance and reliability to start their manufacturing and supply chain development.
The aim of this competition is to enable Agri-tech innovators to advance product performance and reliability of their manufacturing and supply chain capability. Projects should aim to close technology gaps that prevent products being proven, demonstrated and accepted in end user conditions.
If your application passes the technical assessment, any awards given to primary agriculture producers are subject to green box exemption under the WTO Agreement on Agriculture.
When applying for funding, your project must have total costs of between £250,000 and £750,000 with projects starting by 1st October 2026 and ending by 30th September 2027 and lasting between 6-12 months. Funded organisations need to carry out their project work in the UK and intent to exploit the project results from or in the UK.
Lead: To lead a collaborative project, organisations must be a UK registered business of any size. Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone.
Project team: To collaborate with the lead, organisations must be a UK registered business of any size, academic institution, charity, not for-profit, public-sector organisation or research and technology organisation.
Non-funded partners: Projects can include UK organisations that do not claim funding for work on the project. These costs will be covered from their own resources. Where Non-funded partners have been invited to the application on IFS, their costs will count towards the total eligible project costs.
Subcontractors: Subcontractors are allowed in this competition and can be from anywhere in the UK. If overseas subcontractors have been used, you must state why contactors from the UK could not be used.
Number of applications: Businesses can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in two further applications. If an organisation is not leading an application, it can collaborate in any number of applications.
Previous applications: Previously submitted applications cannot be used in this competition.
The following projects cannot be funded:
Innovate UK are offering up to £5 million to fund innovation projects. Funding will be in the form of a grant.
If your organisation’s work on the project is commercial or economic, funding requests must not exceed the below limits.
For industrial research projects, you can get funding for your eligible project costs of:
Category 2: Industrial research projects
Funding available for your eligible project costs of:
Research Participation
Research organisations undertaking non-economic activities as part of the project can share up to 50% of the total eligible costs. If your consortium contains more than one research organisation undertaking non-economic activity, this maximum is shared between them. Of that 50% you can receive funding for eligible projects costs of up to:
Eligibility criteria for claiming 80% of FEC funding
Book an appointment to speak to one of our advisors to discuss your eligibility to apply for this Grant Funding opportunity.
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