Farming Innovation Pathways (FIP) – Industrial Research Funding Programme (UK)

Deadline: 28-Apr-21

Applicants are invited to submit their applications for Farming Innovation Pathways (FIP) – Industrial Research programme to support the development of novel innovations to develop and support a productive, resilient, and sustainable agricultural sector.

This funding is delivered through the ISCF Transforming Food Production programme, in partnership with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

Priority Areas

Project must address one or more high priority areas in at least one of these four industry subsectors:

Livestock
Plant
Novel food production systems
Bioeconomy and Agroforestry

Project Size

Project must:

have total eligible costs between £250,000 and £750,000
start by 1 October 2021
last up to 24 months

Funding Information

The programme have allocated up to £7 million to fund innovation projects in this industrial research competition.

Eligibility Criteria

Funding for this competition is from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ Future Farming and Countryside Programme. Project can be based anywhere in the UK but must generate benefits to the English farming sector.
This competition is for collaborative industrial research only.
Proposal should focus on the development of technologies, systems or approaches that will make significant steps towards improving productivity, increasing sustainability and resilience. It must:
- demonstrate or deliver outcomes or benefits for farmers
- help the agriculture sector to move towards achieving net zero emissions by 2040
The programme expects project to have clear links to farmers, growers, agri-businesses, and other potential end users. Proposal must show that have considered the appropriate business models and routes to adoption and have sought the relevant expertise to enable this.
Must address problems identified by farmer and industry needs so that innovative solution can be integrated into the sector with the potential to be widely adopted.
Any awards given to primary agricultural producers are subject to the green box exemption under the WTO Agreement on Agriculture.
Lead organisation:
- To lead a project, organisation must:
- be a UK registered business of any size
- collaborate with other UK registered businesses, research organisations or RTOs
- carry out its project work in the UK
- intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
Project team:
- To collaborate with the lead, organisation must:
- be a UK registered business, charity, public sector organisation, academic institution, research organisation or research and technology organisation (RTO)
- carry out its project work in the UK
- intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
Subcontractors:
- Subcontractors are allowed in this competition and must be selected through a participant’s normal procurement process. Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK. If an overseas subcontractor is selected, a case must be made as to why no UK-based subcontractor can be used including a detailed rationale, evidence of UK companies that have been approached and reasons why they were unable to do so.
Number of applications:
- When a business, leads on an application it can collaborate in a further 2 applications across both competition strands.
- If a business is not leading any application, it can collaborate in up to 3 applications across both competition strands.
- An academic institution, research organisation or RTO can collaborate on any number of applications across both competition strands.