ADOPT Facilitator Support Grant: Round 2

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

A farmer, grower or forester can only lead on one application per competition round, and receive a maximum of two Facilitator Support Grants in total.

Project Facilitator

The Project Facilitator is the person who will be working with you to submit a Full ADOPT Grant application. They must be registered in the Innovate UK Business Connect database.

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.

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 that your Full ADOPT Grant application has been sent for assessment.
• submit a claim within six months of receiving your Grant Offer letter

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.

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

• agriculture
• horticulture
• agro-forestry

We are not funding projects that:

• do not benefit farmers, growers or foresters in England
• are based on funded crop variety plot trials
• are based on existing demonstration trials or projects
• are for the production of crops or plants for medicinal or pharmaceutical use
• are for cultivated meat
• are based on equine systems
• involve wild caught fisheries
• involve aquaculture, such as algae and seaweed, or fermentation systems for bacteria, yeast or fungi for human consumption

Recorded briefings on the scope and process are available: watch the scope recording and watch the process recording.

Click here to download the briefing slides.

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

Full ADOPT grants round 2 will be open from 26 June 2025, with a closing date of 20 August 2025.

This competition closes on 24 July 2025. If you would prefer to apply for facilitator support at a later date, ADOPT Facilitator Support Grant Round 3 will open on 23 July 2025.