ADOPT Facilitator Support Grant: Round 1

Project Facilitator

You must only include in the ‘other costs’ line of the finance section the name of the Project Facilitator you will be working with and the maximum grant amount of £2,500.

Lead organisation

To lead a project your organisation must:

• be an active farming, growing or forestry business of any size based in England
• be able to evidence that you are an established commercial business, including sole traders and partnerships
• have a UK bank account

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

Subcontractors

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.

The subcontractor must be the Project Facilitator who will be working with you to submit a Full ADOPT Grant application.

The Project Facilitator must be registered in the Innovate UK Business Connect database.

We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and are committed to making our application process accessible to everyone. This includes making reasonable adjustments, for people who have a disability or a long-term condition and face barriers applying to us.

We recommend you contact us at least 15 working days before this competition’s closing date to allow us to put the most suitable support in place. The support we can provide may be limited if you contact us close to the competition deadline.

You can contact Innovate UK by email or call 0300 321 4357. Our phone lines are open from 9am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm UK time, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).

If you have any enquiries about the ADOPT funding opportunity please contact the ADOPT Support HUB. Email: adoptsupport@adas.co.uk or call 0800 987 8006. The Support Hub line is open from 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday.

To be eligible to apply for this competition, you must:

• engage with an external Project Facilitator that is registered in the Innovate UK Business Connect database
• work with the facilitator to develop and submit an eligible application for a Full ADOPT Grant competition

If you are successful in this competition you will need to provide evidence within six months of the funding being awarded that your Full ADOPT Grant application has been sent for assessment.

A total of £2,500 will be awarded per successful participant once the claim and evidence is submitted.

This competition is designed for farmers, growers and foresters based in England who are keen to test and trial new ideas or solutions on-farm and require support to develop a Full ADOPT Grant application.

The aim of this competition is to:

• provide a £2,500 grant for a farmer, grower or forester based in England to engage an external Project Facilitator to support with submissions into the Full ADOPT Grant competitions
• improve the quality of Full ADOPT Grant applications
• make ADOPT funding accessible to a wider range of applicants
• enhance the skills and expertise of the farming eco-system to engage with innovation funding

The project you intend to develop and submit as a Full ADOPT Grant application must be for an on-farm trial or experiment to test new ideas and solutions. This is to demonstrate to you and other farmers, growers or foresters if it works in real on-farm conditions.

Your project will need to address major on-farm or immediate post farmgate challenges or opportunities and it must have the potential to significantly improve one or more of the following:

• productivity
• resilience
• sustainability and progression towards net zero farming

Your proposal must demonstrate to other farmers, growers or foresters in England how the idea or solution will be of benefit to them.

Your project must focus on testing and trialling ideas or solutions that are either new or not yet widely used.

Portfolio approach

We aim to fund a variety of projects across different technologies, markets and technological maturities. We call this a portfolio approach.

Your project must address a significant industry challenge or opportunity in at least one or more of the following sectors:

• agriculture
• horticulture
• agro-forestry

An online briefing event was held on 10 April. You can view the recording and download the slides from this event.

This grant is intended for a farmer, grower or forester based in England to engage an external Project Facilitator to support with the submission into the Full ADOPT Grant competitions.

The Project Facilitator must be registered in the Innovate UK Business Connect Facilitator database.

If you want help finding a Project Facilitator contact Innovate UK Business Connect.

The ADOPT Support Hub, run by ADAS, has been commissioned to work on ADOPT and they can support applicants and funded projects throughout their journey.