Key Features
UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £13 million for small R&D partnership projects. This funding is from the industry led R&D Partnerships Fund, a part of the Defra Farming Innovation Programme.
Programme: Innovate UK
Award: Share of up to £13 million
Opens: 1st Sep 2026
Closes: 14th Oct 2026
Innovate UK alongside Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme to invest up to £13 million in this innovation projects competition.
The aim of this competition is to develop solutions with the potential to improve overall productivity, sustainability, resilience and move existing agricultural sectors to net zero.
Projects must address one of the following industry challenges or opportunities in one of the following industry subsectors:
To be eligible for this competition projects must have total costs of between £1 million and £3 million, be collaborative and last up to 30 months. Projects must start by 1st April 2027 and end by 31st March 2030 with all project work carried out in the UK with results exploited from or in England.
Lead Organisation: To lead a collaborative project, organisations must be a UK registered business of any size. Consortiums must contain at least one UK registered micro, small or medium sized enterprise claiming grant funding on this application.
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 will 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 by UK subcontractors could have be used in your application.
Number of applications: Businesses can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in two further applications. Businesses not leading an application can collaborate in any number of applications. Academic institutions, research and technology organisations, charities, not for profit or public sector organisations can collaborate on any number of applications.
Previous applications: Previous applications can be used in this competition.
Innovate UK are not funding the following projects:
Innovate UK have allocated up to £13 million to fund innovation projects in this competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant.
If your project includes grant funding for farmers, growers or foresters, a minimum of 50% of the total grant amount requested by them in your application, must come from farmers, growers or foresters geographically based in England.
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:
Research participation
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 can get funding for your eligible project costs of up to:
Eligibility criteria for claiming 80% of FEC funding
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