Farming Futures: automation and robotics, industrial research

Key Features

UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £12.5 million across the two strands of this competition, to develop innovative solutions for automation and robotics. This funding is from the Farming Futures R&D Fund.

Programme:     Innovate UK

Award:     Share of up to £12.5 million

Opens: 9th Jan 2023

Closes: 15th Mar 2023

! This scheme is now closed

Overview

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) will invest up to £12.5 million in innovation projects.

This funding is part of Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme, which is delivered in partnership with UKRI’s Transforming Food Production Challenge.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to fund collaborative projects with ambitious solutions for robotics and automation in agriculture and horticulture by:

  • supporting specific recommendation for automation innovation funding from recent Defra reviews including the Automation in Horticulture Review (specifically recommendations 2 and 3) and the Government Food Strategy
  • addressing key issues affecting the sector, where automation and robotics can mitigate challenges in for example, labour availability or input costs through better resource use and efficiency

In this strand 1 for industrial research, you must accelerate collaborative R&D to develop innovations for robotics and automation in agriculture and horticulture.

The innovative technologies in your proposal must focus on one or more of the following:

  • robotic and automated machines and systems for static or mobile operation
  • imaging, sensing, and monitoring devices and systems to collect and store data and associated systems to process data for management records and to drive management decisions and automated actions
  • systems for on-farm processing and packing operations

Your project must seek to significantly improve:

  • productivity
  • sustainability and environmental impact of farming
  • progression towards net zero emissions
  • longer term resilience

You must be able to demonstrate how the solution and output will benefit farmers, or growers in England.

Your project must:

  • demonstrate environmental benefits and societal impact
  • include clear project deliverables for measuring the sustainability of your solutions, and how they are preventing negative impact upon the sector
  • ensure your solutions are closely aligned with industry priorities to deliver business-orientated and transformative opportunities
  • consider how it will encourage dissemination and knowledge exchange to the wider sector

Innovate UK want to fund a variety of projects across the two competition strands, different technologies, markets and research categories. They call this a portfolio approach.

Specific Themes

Your project must focus on one or more of the following agricultural and horticultural production sectors:

Livestock

  • Monogastric
  • Ruminant

Plant

  • Broadacre: cereals, root crops, grassland
  • Horticulture: field based and specialist growers
  • Fruit: top fruit, stone fruit and soft fruit
  • Vineyard
  • Protected cropping: glass and polytunnel systems
  • Controlled Environment and Vertical Farming Systems

Eligibility

If you are successful, any awards given to primary agricultural producers are subject to the green box exemption, under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Agreement on Agriculture.

Please see further guidance on green box subsidies in the 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 £500,000 and £1 million
  • start by 1 September 2023
  • end by 31 August 2026 for 36 month duration projects
  • end by 31 August 2027 for 48 month duration projects
  • be able to demonstrate how the project will benefit farmers or growers in England
  • carry out all of its project work in the UK
  • intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

You must only include eligible project costs in your application.

Under current restrictions, this competition will not fund any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any Russian and Belarusian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian and Belarusian source.

Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone.

Your project can include partners that do not receive any of this competition’s funding, for example non-UK businesses. Their costs will count towards the total project costs.

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.

A business can only lead on one application in each strand of this competition. A business can also be included as a collaborator in a further 2 applications in each of the 2 strands of the competition.

If an organisation is not leading any application, it can collaborate in any number of applications across both strands of the competition.

You can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.

 

Exclusions

Innovate UK are not funding projects that:

  • are equine specific
  • are forestry specific
  • are specific to non-food or ornamental plants
  • 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 for bacteria, yeast or fungi for human consumption
  • are for the production of crops or plants for medicinal or pharmaceutical use
  • do not benefit farmers or growers in England
  • involve post farm gate processing and packaging

Innovate UK 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

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) has allocated up to £12.5 million to fund innovation projects across the two strands of this competition. Defra will be working in partnership with UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Transforming Food Production Challenge to deliver this competition.

Funding will be in the form of a grant.

If your project has farmers or growers requesting grant funding, a minimum of 50% of the total grant amount requested by those organisations, must come from farmers or growers geographically based in England.

The total funding available for the competition can change. The funders have the right to:

  • adjust the funding allocations between the two competition strands
  • apply a ‘portfolio’ approach

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.

For Industrial Research projects, you could 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

For more information on company sizes, please refer to the company accounts guidance. This is a change from the EU definition unless you are applying under State aid.

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.

The research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 30% 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 30% you could 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 project costs if you are an RTO, charity, not for profit organisation, public sector organisation or research organisation

Interested in applying for this competition?

Book an appointment to speak to one of our advisors to discuss your eligibility to apply for this Grant Funding opportunity.