Key Features
UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £15 million for feasibility projects. This funding is from the industry led R&D Partnerships Fund, part of the Farming Innovation Programme.
Programme: Innovate Uk
Award: Share of up to £15 million
Opens: 15th Jul 2026
Closes: 9th Sep 2026
Innovate UK in partnership with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will invest up to £15 million to fund innovation projects in this competition.
The aim of this competition is to fund feasibility studies investigating new solutions that address major on-farm or immediate post farmgate challenges.
Projects must address a significant industry challenge or opportunity in one of the following industry sectors:
To be eligible for this competition, you project must have total project costs of between £200,000 and £500,000. Projects must start by 1st January 2027 and end by 31st December 2028 and last up to 24 months.
Lead Organisation: To lead a collaborative project, organisations must be UK businesses of any size collaborating with other UK-registered organisations. You must be able to evidence that you are an established commercial business and involve at least one other grant-claiming business of any size.
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 organisations that do not claim funding for their work on the project. These costs must be covered by their own resources and can include UK, EU and other non-UK organisations. Non-UK partners are permitted to carry out project work from within their home countries and exploit results outside the UK.
Subcontractors: Subcontractors are allowed in this competition and can be from anywhere in the UK. Overseas subcontractors can be used, but you must state why UK subcontractors could not be used in your application.
Number of applications: 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 will be ineligible. If a business is not leading any application, they can collaborate in any number of applications. All other organisations can collaborate on any number of applications.
Previous applications: Previously submitted applications can be used in this competition.
The following projects will not be funded:
Innovate UK in partnership with Defra have invested up to £15 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, 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 feasibility studies you can get funding for your eligible project costs of:
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.
Research participation
The research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 50% 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 50% you can get funding for your eligible project 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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