Lead organisation

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.

More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules.

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. You will also be required to include their name in Question 10 in the ‘How to apply’ section.

Subcontractors

Subcontractors are not allowed in this competition.

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.

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

We cannot fund projects that are:

• dependent on export performance, for example, giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it exports a certain quantity of bread to another country
• dependent on domestic inputs usage, for example, giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it uses 50% UK flour in their product

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.

A recorded briefing, scope and process are available soon on the IFS site: watch the recording

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.