Key Features
UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £750,000 for the development and demonstration of innovative new technologies. These projects will be in the horticultural food and drink supply chain.
Programme: Innovate UK
Award: Share of up to £750,000
Opens: 20th Nov 2023
Closes: 24th Jan 2024
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will work with Growing Kent and Medway (GKM) consortium, led by NIAB to invest up to £750,000 in innovative projects. These projects are for the development and demonstration of innovative new technologies in the horticultural food and drink supply chain.
They will stimulate an uplift in the region’s economy through inclusive and innovation-led growth.
The aim of this competition is to support business focused innovative technology development with emphasis on industrial prototyping and demonstration. The technologies developed in these projects must aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve sustainability, or deliver improved productivity in horticultural and food production systems.
The competition focuses on:
Your proposal must focus on innovative technology development and:
Innovate UK want to fund real world prototypes or demonstrators of innovative technologies in an operational setting in the horticultural food and drink production sector.
Your proposal must demonstrate the potential to positively impact on the economy of the Kent and Medway (K&M) area.
Your project must:
At the end of your real-world operational demonstration project, you must:
Demonstration period
Your demonstration must include the technology being used in a representative real world operational environment for a period of at least two weeks.
There is no fixed definition of how projects must undertake their demonstration and use this minimum two week period. The demonstration will depend on your project, technology and what is required to prove its performance. Innovate UK strongly encourage projects to utilise this minimum two week period fully and to gather as much performance data as possible.
Your application must clearly state how you plan to undertake the demonstration, including how much time in operational use you currently expect and why this is appropriate for your project. During the demonstration you must validate the technology operation for the use case or target market and capture data on the performance.
Portfolio approach
Innovate UK want to fund projects across different technologies, geographic sub-regions, technological maturities, theme and research categories. We call this a portfolio approach.
Portfolio consideration will include:
Your project must focus on one or more of the following:
Any awards given to primary agricultural producers are subject to the green box exemption under the WTO Agreement on Agriculture. Please 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
Your project must:
Projects must always start on the first of the month and this must be stated within your application. Your project start date will be reflected in your grant offer letter if you are successful.
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 or Belarusian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian or Belarusian source.
Lead organisation
The lead organisation may be based outside of the Kent and Medway (K&M) area but you must collaborate with at least one organisation in the K&M area.
To lead a project your organisation must:
More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules.
Academic institutions and Research and Technology Organisations (RTOs) cannot lead or work alone.
Project team
To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be a UK based grower, producer, food and drink manufacturer or one of the following UK registered:
Collaborations with research organisations in the K&M area are encouraged but not mandatory. These organisations are:
Collaborations with research organisations from outside the K&M area are not permitted in this competition.
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.
Non-funded partners
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
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 could not use suppliers 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 can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in two further applications.
If a business is not leading a project, they can collaborate on any number of applications within this competition.
Research organisations, charities, not for profit, public sector organisations and research and technology organisations can collaborate on any number of applications.
You can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.
Innovate UK are not funding projects that:
Innovate UK cannot fund projects that are:
Up to £750,000 has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition. 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.
For industrial research projects, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:
For experimental development projects which are nearer to market, you could 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 could get funding for your eligible project costs of up to:
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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