ADOPT Facilitator Support Grant: Round 3

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

Organisations that are not profit driven or do not have a commercial focus, including Community Interest Companies (CICs) and charities, are not allowed to participate in this competition.

Subcontractors are not allowed in this competition.

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.

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.

You can contact us at any time to ask for guidance.

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. Further information can be found in the Supporting Information Tab.

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.

If you are successful in the Full ADOPT Grants, 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.

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

A recorded briefing from 24 July will be available from the Innovation Funding Service.

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 Project Facilitator database.

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. They can:

• act as the first point of contact for the applicant providing advice on scope, suitability or on-farm trial practicalities
• help form connections finding expertise, partners and capabilities necessary for an application
• provide and promote standards on best practice for on-farm R&D
• support the exchange of information and outputs from funded projects to share amongst farmers to enable broad knowledge exchange and dissemination

For information and support visit the ADOPT Support Hub website, email: adoptsupport@adas.co.uk or call 0800 987 8006. The Support Hub line is open from 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday.