Lead organisation

To lead a project you 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
• collaborate with at least one other farming or growing businesses of any size, based in the UK

Organisations that are not profit driven or do not have a commercial focus, including Community Interest Companies (CICs) and charities, are not allowed to lead in this competition.

It is desirable that you also collaborate with other UK registered organisations.

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

Academic institutions cannot lead.

Project team

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be a farmer, grower or forester based in the UK.

You may also collaborate if you are a UK registered:

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

A single partner cannot account for more than 70% of the total eligible costs.

Subcontractors

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.

Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK and you must select them through your usual procurement process.

You can use subcontractors from overseas but must make the case in your application as to why you cannot use subcontractors from the UK.

You must provide a detailed rationale, evidence of the potential UK contractors you approached and the reasons why they were unable to work with you. We will not accept a cheaper cost as a sufficient reason to use an overseas subcontractor.

All subcontractor costs must be justified and appropriate to the total project costs.

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.

Your project must:

• have total costs between £50,000 and £100,000
• last between 6 and 24 months
• start by 1 March 2026
• end by 29 February 2028
• intend to exploit the results from or in England
• carry out all of its project work in the UK
• embrace open innovation principles and be willing to share results with other farmers, growers or foresters
• have a Project Facilitator as part of the project team who is listed in the ADOPT Innovate UK Business Connect database
• be collaborative

Projects must always start on the first of the month, even if this is a non-working day. You must not start your project until your Grant Offer Letter has been approved by Innovate UK. Any delays within Project Setup may mean we need to delay your project start date.

You must only include eligible project costs in your application. For specific guidance, see the eligibility section in this competition.

You must ensure that one partner does not account for more than 70% of the total eligible costs.

The aim of this competition is to support innovative on-farm trials or experiments to test ideas or solutions and demonstrate that they will address major on-farm or immediate post farmgate challenges or opportunities.

Your project must have the potential to significantly improve one or more of:

• productivity
• resilience
• sustainability and progression towards net zero farming

Your project must focus on testing and trialling ideas or solutions that are either new or not yet widely used.

You must demonstrate to other English farmers, growers or foresters how the project will benefit them.

You must outline how you will communicate and share the outputs from your trial or experiment during and after your project.

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

A recorded briefing, scope and process will be available soon on the IFS site at the link below.

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.