Farming Futures R&D Fund: low emissions farming

Key Features

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.

Programme:     Innovate UK

Award:     Share of up to £12.5 million

Opens: 5th May 2025

Closes: 25th Jun 2025

! This scheme is closing soon

Overview

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.

Scope

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.

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

Eligibility

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 registered business of any size, an 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 UK registered:

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

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.

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.

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

Innovate UK 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.

Exclusions

Innovate UK 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

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

Funding Costs

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.

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.