Key Features
UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £28 million for soil, water and environmental management. This funding is from Farming Futures R&D Fund.
Programme: Innovate UK
Award: Share of up to £28 million
Opens: 19th Nov 2026
Closes: 28th Jan 2027
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in partnership with Innovate UK are investing up to £28 million in innovation projects.
The aim of this competition is to fund collaborative development projects that deliver ambitious, commercially deployable solutions to challenges associated with soil, water and environmental management in farming and growing production systems.
Projects can focus on one of the following specific themes:
To be eligible for this competition your application must pass a technical assessment, any awards given to primary agricultural producers are subject to the green box exemption under the WTO Agreement on Agriculture.
Projects must be able to evidence how the solution will benefit farmers, growers or foresters in England with project costs of between £1 million and £5 million. Projects must last up to 36 months, starting 1st August 2027 and ending by 31st July 2030. All organisations receiving funding must carry out project work in the UK with results exploited from or in the UK.
Lead Organisation: To lead a collaborative project, organisations must be a UK registered business of any size. Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone.
Project team: To collaborate with a lead, organisations must be one of the following UK registered business of any size, academic institution, charity, not for profit, public sector organisation or research and technology organisation. To be eligible to collaborate, the lead and at least one other organisation must request funding. No single organisation can claim more than 70% of the total project costs.
Non-funded partners: Projects can include organisations that do not claim funding for their work on the project. These costs must be covered from their own resources and can include UK, EU or other no-UK organisations. Non-UK partners are allowed to carry out project work from within their home counties 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 why UK subcontractors could not be used in your application.
Number of applications: Eligible organisations can only lead on one application. Further applications will be made ineligible. An eligible organisation that is leading an application can be included as a collaborator in a further two applications. If not leading, they can collaborate in any number of applications.
Previous applications: Previously submitted applications can be used in this competition.
Innovate UK are not funding the following projects:
Innovate UK are funding up to £28 million in this Healthy Soils and Water for a Sustainable Environment competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant.
A minimum of 50% of the total grant amount registered by farmers, growers or foresters must be allocated to farmers, growers or foresters 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 this competition, 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 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:
Eligibility criteria for claiming 80% of FEC funding
Call 
Back
