Agri-tech and food technology, Mid and North Wales - CRD

To lead a collaborative project your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size. The consortium must contain at least one UK registered micro, small or medium sized enterprise (SME) claiming grant funding on this application. You must ensure any one partner does not account for more than 70% of the total eligible costs.

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be UK registered, and can be a business of any size, academic institution, charity, not for profit, public sector organisation, or research and technology organisation (RTO). For help to find a collaboration partner, contact Innovate UK Business Connect’s Agrifood team.

More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules. Academic institutions and RTOs cannot lead.

A business can only lead on one application, but can be included as a collaborator in any number of applications. If you are not leading any application, you can collaborate in any number of applications.

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).

Your project must:

• have a total grant funding request of between £150,000 and £500,000 (this can cover up to 70% of project costs, depending on business size and project type)
• last between 6 and 16 months
• carry out all of its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
• not start before 1 December 2025
• end by 31 March 2027

If your application passes the technical assessment, 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 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.

Use of animals in research and innovation

Innovate UK expects and supports the provision and safeguarding of welfare standards for animals used in research and innovation, according to best practice and up to date guidance. Applicants must ensure that all of the proposed work within projects, both that in the UK and internationally, will comply with the UKRI guidance on the use of animals in research and innovation.

Any projects selected for funding which involve animals will be asked to provide additional information on welfare and ethical considerations, as well as compliance with any relevant legislation as part of the project start-up process. This information will be reviewed before an award is made.

The aim of this competition is to support outstanding innovation projects led by businesses. Your project must help to grow your innovation activities in the agri-tech and food technology cluster in Mid and North Wales. For this competition, Mid and North Wales consists of Ceredigion, Powys, Anglesey, Gwynedd, Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire and Wrexham. Your project must contribute to growing your innovation activities in the cluster, both during and after your project.

Your ongoing contribution could be demonstrated by:

• your local innovation activities
• the value that your innovation activities create in the cluster
• an increase in related innovation activity by ongoing partners or subcontractors in the cluster
• your engagement with other innovation active organisations in the cluster, such as Growing Mid Wales & Ambition North Wales with support from AberInnovation and MSPARC, this Launchpad’s cluster management organisation

Your application may be considered ineligible if you do not describe clearly how your main project activities and work packages meet the scope of this competition. This includes the main project activities of any subcontractors.

If you do not describe how your innovation activities in the cluster will continue after your project, then you are unlikely to be offered funding in this competition.

The geographical requirement is to align this competition to the UK Government’s goals for local economic growth.

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

• productivity, quality, nutritional value, resilience, and resource efficiency
• food processing, manufacturing, and developing new markets
• sustainability, biodiversity and rural resilience

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

Productivity, quality, nutritional value, resilience, and resource efficiency

• of crops, livestock, aquaculture, or food products
• improving resource and supply chain efficiency through precision farming, logistics, circular models, smart tech, or biotech excluding biochar

Food processing, manufacturing, and developing new markets

• healthy, sustainable, regionally relevant novel foods or ingredients
• rural or small-scale food processing, packaging, safety, by-product use
• adapting produce to create new market opportunities

Sustainability, biodiversity and rural resilience

• livestock health through precision diagnostics, targeted therapeutics, antimicrobial stewardship
• regenerative or nature-based practices that support landscape health or climate resilience
• farming practices that support the future of farming
• adaptive land management supporting changing land conditions

These lists are not exhaustive. Where you can show your proposal fits within the scope of this competition you can focus on other specific themes.

Reflecting the bilingual nature of Wales, we and our partners on this Launchpad also encourage you to consider your opportunities to provide communications, materials, and engagement activities bilingually.

We are not funding projects that:

• do not meet the competition eligibility or scope requirements
• request grant funding of less than £150,000 or more than £500,000
• involve the production, processing or servicing of biochar
• are aimed solely at equine markets
• involve wild caught fisheries

We cannot fund projects that:

• involve primary production in fishery, aquaculture, or agriculture; the project must focus on research and development benefiting the wider business community
• use funding for capital asset acquisition
• have activities relating to the purchase of road freight transport

An online briefing event will be held at 10am on Thursday 3 July: click here for the joining link. Briefing recording and slides will be available to download after the briefing event.

If you want help to find a project partner, contact Innovate UK Business Connect’s Agrifood team, or business support teams in the cluster: AberInnovation and MSparc Agritech Cluster.