Diet and health innovation: Early stage feasibility projects

To lead a project your organisation must:

• be a business of any size

or

• a research organisation eligible for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funding

Your consortium must include at least one business and one research organisation, as a minimum.

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 a business is not leading any application, it can collaborate in any number of applications.

A research organisation can collaborate and lead on any number of applications.

The lead applicant and partners must be members of a Diet and Health Open Innovation Research Club (OIRC) hub. Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) will be checking names, organisations and job titles against applicant’s membership of the OIRC hubs.

If you would like to become a member of, or find out more about any of the Diet and Health Open Innovation Research Club (OIRC) hubs, please contact the British Nutrition Foundation (BNF).

BNF is the coordinating body for the Diet and Health OIRC. Visit the BNF website to find out more about this exciting opportunity to connect with the Hubs and to join as a member or email Sarah Coe at s.coe@nutrition.org.uk.

You must work with one or more of these hubs, and lead applicants must be members (see above for membership contact details). The existing hubs are:

• Translational Innovation hub for population health using food and nutrition approaches to enhance positive physiology (The RIPEN hub)
• Innovation hub for improving health and nutrition through biofortification (HERB hub)
• Consumer lab: building academic industry partnerships to ensure sustained acceptance of healthy foods (ConsumerLab)
• Investigating the role of functional foods and beverages to improve health and recovery (INFORM)
• Understanding how food and beverages deliver improved nutrition across the life-course (I-NutriLife)
• Start healthy – stay healthy: aligning public and planetary health through precision plant-based dietary solutions across the life-course (STAR hub)

Your project must:

• have total costs between £100,000 and £250,000
• last between 9 and 18 months
• carry out all of its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
• start by 1 October 2024
• end by 31 March 2026

The aim of this competition is to support UK registered businesses and UK research organisations in the design and development of innovative food products to support sustained health and wellbeing. Projects can be focussed across the life course and are not restricted to older populations.

Your project must have the potential to impact the nutritional quality of food and drink products consumed by the UK population.

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

• functional and novel foods to support healthy ageing across the life course
• biofortification as an approach to target delivery of bioactive compounds
• probiotics and prebiotics to maintain or promote a gut microbiome and metabolome that could improve health

We would like to encourage projects that:

• have the potential to improve nutrition in commonly eaten products, including across the convenience and fast-food sectors as well as foods procured by the public sector, for example, in schools and hospitals
• have the potential to have a positive impact on obesity and malnutrition
• address nutrition and health challenges affecting particular demographic groups
• develop innovations that are affordable and accessible to all
• take into account consumer choices and how these are made
• make use of the interplay between food components and human physiology

Your project should consider:

• sustainability in the context of environmental challenges such as climate change and resource scarcity
• how to minimise negative effects such as pollution, food loss and waste

If you would like to become a member of, or find out more about any of the Diet and Health Open Innovation Research Club (OIRC) hubs, please contact the British Nutrition Foundation (BNF).

BNF is the coordinating body for the Diet and Health OIRC. Visit the BNF website to find out more about this exciting opportunity to connect with the Hubs and to join as a member or email Sarah Coe at s.coe@nutrition.org.uk.

If you would like help to find a collaboration partner, please contact Innovate UK KTN’s Health team.