Project Funding: Apply for a share of up to £2 million

Deadline: 14-Sep-22

Apply for a share of up to £2 million from the African Agriculture Strand of the KTP. In this round of the African agriculture strand of the Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) Innovate UK is investing towards the funding of projects.

Focus Areas

Your project must be in one of the following areas:

• primary crop and livestock production, including aquaculture
• non-food uses of crops, excluding ornamentals
• challenges in food processing, distribution or storage, and value addition (such as through a change in the physical state or form of the product)
• improving the availability and accessibility of safe, healthy and nutritious foods

Funding Information

• Typically projects cost no more than £170,000 in total, split equally between knowledge base partners. Projects are fully funded by Innovate UK.
• Typically projects last 15 months, depending on the project requirements.

Eligible Projects

• Your project’s innovations must:
  • be sustainable in the context of environmental challenges such as climate change and resource scarcity
  • minimise negative effects such as pollution, food loss and waste
  • promote safe, healthy and nutritious diets
• Your application must demonstrate how your project will contribute towards:
  • enhanced food and nutrition security
  • welfare of the poor in urban and rural areas in developing countries

Eligibility Criteria

• This award is provided on a No subsidy basis. This means the knowledge base partner must publish or make all project outputs openly available on a non-selective basis. Your project must start after 6 April 2023.
• Each African agriculture KTP is a partnership between the following:
  • a UK registered higher education or further education institution, research and technology organisation (RTO) or Catapult (which they will refer to as the ‘UK knowledge base’)
  • an African business or not for profit organisation (which they will refer to collectively as the ‘business partner’)
  • a knowledge base in Africa (which they will refer to as the ‘African knowledge base’)
• The business and African knowledge base must both be based in one of the following countries:
  • Republic of Ghana
  • Federal Republic of Nigeria
  • Republic of Kenya
  • Republic of South Africa
• KTP does not support projects where the business partner is in the public sector.
• UK knowledge base partner
  • The UK knowledge base must lead the project and must:
    • be a UK registered higher education (HE) or further education (FE) institution, RTO or Catapult
    • invite one business or not for profit organisation from Republic of Ghana, Federal Republic of Nigeria, Republic of Kenya or Republic of South Africa to join the application and collaborate with them on the development of the project
    • invite one African knowledge base from the same African country as the business partner to join the application and collaborate with them on the development of the project
    • invite one knowledge transfer adviser to join the application
    • not act in any way to gain selective commercial or economic advantage from the outputs of the project
    • allow associates to carry out the majority of the project at the business partner’s premises
    • make sure the application is completed and submitted before the competition closes
• African Business partner
  • To collaborate with the knowledge bases, the business partner must:
    • be a business, of any size, or a not for profit organisation registered in Republic of Ghana, Federal Republic of Nigeria, Republic of Kenya or Republic of South Africa
    • have more than 2 employees
    • demonstrate its ability to financially support its contribution to the project
    • be invited by the UK knowledge base and complete its parts of the application
    • provide business finance information for the past 3 years
• African knowledge base partner
  • The African knowledge base partner must be a registered higher education or further education institution from the same country as the African business partner.
  • The African knowledge base partner must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service by the UK knowledge base partner to collaborate on a project. When the African knowledge base partner accepts their invitation, they will need to:
    • login or create an account
    • provide estimates of their own project costs, which may be updated as part of the final reporting process

For more information, visit the following link:

https://apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk/competition/1269/overview/8899a288-f48e-4c1e-ae90-02b544ac09b3