This competition is open to collaborations only.

To lead a collaborative project your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size.

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:

• business of any size
• academic institution
• charity
• not for profit
• public sector organisation
• research and technology organisation (RTO)

A business can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in two further applications.

If an organisation is not leading any application, it can collaborate in any number of applications.

Your project must:

• have total costs of between £1 million and £3 million
• last between 6 months and 18 months
• start by 1 January 2027
• end by 30 June 2028

Any funded organisation needs to carry out their project work in the UK and must intend to exploit the project results from or in the UK.

The aim of this competition is to enable Agri-tech innovators to advance their product performance and reliability, and their manufacturing and supply chain capability, to achieve production at scale. Your project should target getting products to market to accelerate end user adoption, and to drive UK Agri-tech frontier industry growth and UK agricultural productivity and sustainability.

Your project must demonstrate how it will move your business, technologies and products closer to manufacturing readiness, production at scale and lead to market adoption. You must also include a robust business plan that supports production and market scale up.

Your project must focus on one or more of the following:

• technologies that enable automation to reduce labour demands and improve productivity and sustainability in agriculture, forestry, horticulture and aquaculture
• automation and robotic systems and equipment
• automated sensing and observation systems that must include associated data processing and intelligence systems to provide actionable management decisions or direct control actions
• identify specific manufacturing, engineering, performance or regulatory compliance issues to address through this process
• outlining how you will accelerate progress, attract investment, and expedite time to market
• you must be able to demonstrate that the product to be brought to market will drive productivity and sustainability, and provide evidence of farmer or grower demand
• a long term market for the product or service; solutions that have the opportunity for global export would be considered advantageous
• your project must be seeking to accelerate late stage development toward viable production and commercialisation

Technologies and project approaches can include but are not limited to:

• design and test of mechanical, electrical, electronic and software systems for robust and reliable function, operation, reliability and durability at scale
• design for manufacture and assembly, and development of manufacturing systems, including tooling and manufacturing development and process optimisation
• supply chain strategy and procurement development
• regulatory and safety compliance testing and approvals including food safety requirements, operational and functional safety, electromagnetic compatibility testing and compliance
• validation and verification for production readiness of software, navigation systems, safety systems, fleet management and deployment systems, including cyber security
• software and hardware system optimisation to enable easy integration with existing business management and process hardware, software and systems
• fleet management and fleet deployment hardware and software including; battery, charging, operator interface, support and monitoring systems
• field, workshop and laboratory trials to prove reliability, endurance and machine up-time in end user environments and to evidence and benchmark performance in real conditions
• devices, technologies and systems to enable effective end user product support, diagnostics and repair

The following supporting events are now available:

Wednesday 8 April 2026, 10-11.15am: online briefing event. Click here to register for a place. A recording and slides will be available afterwards.

Wednesday 29 April 2026, 9am-3pm: live in-person AgriScale showcase and consortium building event in Coventry: register your expression of interest to attend. This event will not be recorded.

If you would like advice on what strand to apply for, or help to find a project partner, contact Innovate UK Business Connect’s Agrifood team.