Farming Innovation Programme - large R&D partnerships Round 2

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) will invest up to £8 million in innovation projects.

This funding is part of Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme which is delivered in partnership with UKRI’s Transforming Food Production Challenge.

The aim of this competition is to:

• fund industrial research and experimental development projects that will address major on-farm or immediate post farmgate challenges or opportunities
• drive the development and demonstration of commercially relevant solutions with the potential to substantially improve overall productivity, profitability, and environmental sustainability
• support the development of scalable solutions that can be taken up widely, be integrated into existing production systems, and have widespread impact
• accelerate research development of new solutions by actively engaging collaboration between the agri-food sector and wider UK research community in the innovation process

Your proposal must be able to demonstrate how the project will benefit farmers, growers or foresters in England.

Eligibility

Your project must:

• have total costs between £3 million and £5 million
• start by 1 November 2023
• end by 30 November 2027
• last up to 48 months
• carry out all of its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in England

Lead organisation

To lead a project your organisation must:

• be a UK registered business of any size
• collaborate with other UK registered organisations
• be or involve at least one grant claiming micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME)
• involve at least one grant claiming academic institution, research and technology organisation (RTO), charity, not-for-profit or public sector organisation

Academic institutions cannot lead.

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be a UK based farmer, grower or forester, or a 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 a further 2 applications. If an organisation is not leading any application, it can collaborate in any number of applications.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to fund industrial research and experimental development projects that will address major on-farm or immediate post farmgate challenges or opportunities.

Your solutions or project outputs must significantly improve:

• productivity
• sustainability and environmental impact of farming
• progression towards net zero emissions​
• resilience

Businesses within a supply chain, are encouraged to come together as a partnership to solve major challenges or opportunities.

Your proposal must be able to demonstrate how the project will:

• benefit farmers, growers, or foresters in England through commercially relevant solutions
• actively work with end users across the whole supply chain to identify the major on-farm or immediate post farmgate challenges or opportunities
• accelerate the development and demonstration of new agricultural solutions through collaboration with the wider UK research community
• build understanding of how your approach can best achieve widespread use, developing a theory of change, working with economists, social scientists, and other relevant experts
• have scalable solutions that can be taken up widely, be integrated into existing production systems, and have widespread impact
• demonstrate how the project will support a transformative change in the agricultural sector
• develop and deliver a knowledge exchange (KE) plan that identifies the targets for the solution with a clear dissemination plan to relevant stakeholders and the wider sector
• exploit the outputs of the project, and expected outcomes in terms of solution adoption, for example, number of end users, area of land, and percentage of production using the new solution