Farming Innovation Programme: Feasibility Round 4

Overview

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will invest up to £4.8 million to fund innovation projects in this competition. This is subject to a sufficient number of high quality applications being received.

This funding is part of Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme which is delivered in partnership with Innovate UK.

Innovate UK reserve the right to adjust funding allocations for any of our competitions under exceptional circumstances, for example, in response to changes in policy, portfolio funding considerations, or broader government funding decisions.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to fund feasibility studies investigating new solutions that will address major on-farm or immediate post farmgate challenges or opportunities.

Your solutions must significantly improve:

productivity
resilience
sustainability and progression towards low emission farming

Your project must be able to demonstrate how the project will benefit farmers, growers or foresters in England.

Portfolio approach

Innovate UK want to fund a variety of projects across different technologies, markets, themes and locations. Innovate UK call this a portfolio approach.

Specific themes

Your project must address a significant industry challenge or opportunity in at least one of the four industry subsectors below:

farmed animals
plants
novel food production systems
bioeconomy and agroforestry

Eligibility

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

See further guidance on green box subsidies 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 eligible costs of between £200,000 and £500,000
last up to 24 months
start by 1 July 2026
end by 30 June 2028

Any funded organisation needs to carry out their project work in the UK and must intend to exploit the project results from or in the UK.

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 collaborative project your organisation must:

be a UK business of any size, including sole traders and partnerships
be able to evidence that you are an established commercial business, including sole traders and partnerships
collaborate with other UK registered organisations
involve at least one other grant claiming business of any size

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

Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone.

Organisations that are not profit driven or do not have a commercial focus, including Community Interest Companies (CICs) and charities, are not allowed to lead in this competition.

Project team

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be a UK registered:

business of any size including, sole traders and partnerships
academic institution
charity
not for profit
public sector organisation
research and technology organisation (RTO)

The farming, growing or forestry businesses applying for grants 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

Non-funded partners

Your project can include non-UK partners, including partners based in the EU, who bring their own funding. Non-UK partners are permitted to carry out project work from within their home countries and exploit results overseas. Their costs will count towards the total eligible project 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. Innovate UK 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 can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in two further applications.

If a business is not leading any application, it can collaborate in any number of applications.

All other organisations can collaborate on 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 can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.

Exclusions

Innovate UK are not funding projects that:

do not benefit farmers, growers or foresters in England
are equine specific
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, bacteria, yeast or fungi for human consumption
are for the production of crops or plants for medicinal or pharmaceutical use

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

This funding is part of Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme which is delivered in partnership with 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 feasibility studies 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 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:

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

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.

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