Deadline: 18-May-22
The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affair is inviting UK registered organisations for a share of up to £12.5 million from the Farming Futures R&D Fund, a part of the Farming Innovation Programme.
Aims
The aim of this funding is to:
- Develop ambitious solutions that will reduce emissions in existing practices whilst making the sector climate resilient
- Support innovation to transform farming productivity, environmental sustainability and resilience, whilst moving the sector towards net zero
- Priorities outcomes aligned with Government key priorities to deliver business oriented solutions
- Develop solutions with a demonstrable societal impact, with clear deliverables including measurement of specific emissions reductions, and impacts
- Build diverse consortiums of innovative agricultural and horticultural businesses and relevant research expertise
- encourage dissemination and knowledge exchange to drive impact and a wide uptake in the farming sector
- Increase the market readiness or maturity of emerging academic solutions
Priority Areas
Your solutions must address the priority areas identified by Defra for reducing emissions and adapting to a changing climate, and significantly improve:
- Productivity
- Sustainability and environmental impact
- Progression towards net zero emissions
- Resilience
Specific Themes
Your project must focus on solutions to reduce emissions in existing agricultural practices or enhance resilience to climate change in one or more of the four industry subsectors:
- Livestock
- Plants
- Novel food production systems
- Bio economy and agroforest
Funding Information
- Defra and UKRI’s Transforming Food Production Challenge have allocated up to £12.5 million to fund innovation projects in this competition.
- If the majority of your organisation’s work on the project is commercial or economic, your funding request must not exceed the limits below. These limits apply even if your organisation normally acts non-economically.
- For industrial research projects, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:
- Up to 70% if you are a micro or small organisation
- Up to 60% if you are a medium-sized organisation
- Up to 50% if you are a large organisation
Who can apply?
Your full stage project must:
- Address the specific requirements of the Defra key priorities for reducing emissions and adapting to a changing climate
- Start by 1 April 2023
- End by 31 March 2027
- Last between 24 and 48 months
- Have total eligible costs between £3 million and £6 million
- Carry out all of its project work in the UK
- Intend to exploit the results from or in England
- Have a minimum of 50% of any grant awarded to farmers, growers or foresters, allocated to farmers, growers or foresters based in England
- You must only include eligible project costs in your application.
Lead Organisation
To lead a project your organisation must be:
- A UK registered business of any size
- An academic institution
- A research and technology organisation (RTO)
- If the lead organisation is an academic institution or an RTO it must collaborate with at least 1 UK registered business of any size.
Project Team
To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be a UK business of any size or a UK registered:
- Academic institution
- Charity
- Not for profit
- Public sector organisation
- Research and technology organisation (RTO)
- Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once accepted, partners will be asked to login or to create an account on the Innovation Funding Service.
Your project must be able to demonstrate how the project will benefit farmers, growers or foresters in England.
For more information, visit https://apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk/competition/1124/overview