Innovation Awards for Climate-Smart Agriculture Partnerships: UK-Brazil-Africa
International consortia can apply for up to £100,000 for climate-smart agriculture for sustainable food production systems in Ghana or Nigeria.
A consortium of 3-4 international partners (one from UK, one from Brazil, one from Ghana or Nigeria, and optionally one more from any of those four countries) can apply for up to £100,000 for an Innovation Award to accelerate the testing and/or development of technologies and/or practices that promote climate-smart agriculture for sustainable food production systems in Ghana or Nigeria.
Climate-Smart Agriculture Partnership: UK-Brazil-Africa is funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and delivered by Innovate UK. This brings together innovative people and organisations to promote climate-smart agriculture in Africa.
In this competition, up to £1.5 million of total funding (up to £100,000 per project) is available for Innovation Awards.
These projects will start on the 1 August 2025. Projects must finish by the 28 February 2026.
What is an Innovation Award?
Projects should focus on exploring an innovation which will promote climate-smart agriculture approaches to address a challenge in food production systems in Ghana or Nigeria. Projects must demonstrate how their specified challenge will be overcome through a defined collaborative research/innovation project. All partners should be fully integrated into the project leadership. There should be equitable involvement in decision-making and setting the direction for the project, your team’s approach to achieving this should be clearly defined within your project plan. This should be reflected within the project budget, with justified distribution of resources across partners and with no single partner dominating the resource allocation without clear justification.
Projects must demonstrate a compelling business-led motivation, a focus on identifying commercial opportunities and define a clear business-related challenge or evidence of demand for innovation. Projects can be innovative either from a commercial or technical perspective.
Projects could involve, for example, the transfer of a technology or practice from one country to another, the co-development of a new technology or practice, research into a new solution or knowledge-sharing from a research base into commercial organisations.
Applications must include a registered business (of any size) as one of the partner organisations. Applications must include at least 3 partners, with 1 partner from each geography i.e. UK, Brazil, Africa (Ghana or Nigeria). An additional fourth partner from any of the four countries is allowed. Consortia must include:
- a UK-registered organisation (who is also the Administrative Lead and will submit the application)
- a Brazil-registered organisation
- either a Nigerian or Ghana-registered organisation
- an additional fourth partner organisation from any of the four countries (UK, Brazil, Ghana, Nigeria) may be included, but is not required.
Who can apply for an Innovation Award?
Applications should be developed collaboratively by a consortium of organisations.
The UK partner will be the Administrative Lead for the project and should submit the application form.
To be the UK Administrative Lead for a project, your organisation must be a UK-registered business of any size, academic institution, research and technology organisation (RTO- see here for eligible RTOs), charity or not for profit.
UK businesses can get funding for 100% of eligible project costs.
UK research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can get funding for eligible project costs of up to:
- 80% of full economic costs (FEC) if you are a Je-S registered institution such as an academic institution
- 100% of your project costs if you are an RTO, charity, not for profit organisation, public sector organisation or research organisation
Brazilian, Ghanaian or Nigerian organisations can get funding for 100% of eligible project costs.
To enter this competition, you do not have to have participated in a Scoping Project.
If successful, all partners will be required to complete due diligence checks, these will include answering the Simplified UKRI due diligence questionnaire and providing an ‘Income and Expenditure statement’ and a ‘Cash Flow statement’.
Not ready to apply for an Innovation Award?
If you do not yet have partners established in the required geographies, need to undertake further explorative discussions to build your innovation project plan or understand your market, you may be interested in applying for a Travel Grant (applications close on 7 May 2025). Travel Grants will enable you to build connections and gather necessary information ahead of applying for future innovation funding.
Further Information
- Download the Innovation Awards for Climate-Smart Agriculture Partnerships: UK- Brazil-Africa Competition Brief.
- Click here to set up a 1-1 call with Innovate UK Business Connect to discuss your idea or ask any questions.
- Email any questions to agripartnership@iukbc.org.uk.
How to apply
Please read the privacy notice before applying.
The link to apply for this funding opportunity will be added to this webpage over the next few weeks before this competition opens for applications on the 3 March 2025.
Applications must be submitted by 11am BST on 7 May 2024.
Related programme

Climate-Smart Agriculture Partnership
Innovate UK Climate-Smart Agriculture Partnership: UK-Brazil-Africa brings together innovative people and organisations to promote climate-smart agriculture in Africa.