Full ADOPT Grant: Round 1

Who can apply

Your project

If you are successful, any awards given to primary agricultural producers are subject to the green box exemption under the WTO Agreement on Agriculture. Please see further guidance on green box subsidies here WTO Guidance for support in Agriculture.

Applicants receiving this type of support must ensure that there is minimal to no distortion of trade and comply with the requirements of Annex 2 of the Agriculture Agreement.

Your project must:

• have total costs between £50,000 and £100,000

• last between 6 and 24 months

• start by 1 November 2025

• end by 31 October 2027

• 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

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.

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

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)

Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service (IFS) by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once partners have accepted the invitation, they will be asked to login or to create an account in IFS. They are responsible for entering their own project costs in the application.

To be an eligible collaboration, the lead and at least one other organisation must apply for funding when entering their costs into the application.

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.

Number of applications

A farmer, grower or forester can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in two further two applications.

If an organisation is not leading an application, it can collaborate in any number of applications.

Sanctions

This competition will not fund you, or provide any financial benefit to any individual or entities directly or indirectly involved with you, which would expose Innovate UK or any direct or indirect beneficiary of funding from Innovate UK to UK Sanctions. For example, through any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any entity as lead, partner or subcontractor related to these countries, administrations and terrorist groups.

Use of animals in research and innovation

Innovate UK expects and supports the provision and safeguarding of welfare standards for animals used in research and innovation, according to best practice and up to date guidance.

Applicants must ensure that all of the proposed work within projects, both that in the UK and internationally, will comply with the UKRI guidance on the use of animals in research and innovation.

Any projects selected for funding which involve animals will be asked to provide additional information on welfare and ethical considerations, as well as compliance with any relevant legislation as part of the project start-up process. This information will be reviewed before an award is made.

Previous applications

You cannot use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.

We will not award you funding if you have:

• failed to exploit a previously funded project

• an overdue independent accountant’s report

• failed to comply with grant terms and conditions

Innovate UK may withhold a grant payment at any time if you have any outstanding sums due to us in relation to other projects.

Subsidy control (and State aid where applicable)

This competition provides funding in line with the Subsidy Control Act 2022. Further information about the Subsidy requirements can be found within the Subsidy Control Act 2022 (legislation.gov.uk).

Innovate UK is unable to award organisations that are considered to be in financial difficulty. We will conduct financial viability and eligibility tests to confirm this is not the case following the application stage.

EU State aid rules now only apply in limited circumstances. Please see the Windsor Framework to check if these rules apply to your organisation.

In the ‘Project details’ section of your application you will be asked questions to indicate if State Aid or Subsidy applies to your organisation.

Further Information

If you are unsure about your obligations under the Subsidy Control Act 2022 or the State aid rules, you should take independent legal advice. We are unable to advise on individual eligibility or legal obligations.

You must always make sure that the funding awarded to you is compliant with all current Subsidy Control legislation applicable in the United Kingdom.

This aims to regulate any advantage granted by a public sector body which threatens to, or actually distorts competition in the United Kingdom or any other country or countries.

This award is classified as a Subsidy which does not form part of your Minimal Financial Assistance or De Minimis allowance.

Funding

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has allocated up to £2 million, working in partnership with Innovate UK to fund on-farm trial projects in this competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant.

A minimum of 50% of the total grant amount requested by farmers, growers and foresters must be allocated to farmers, growers or foresters geographically based in England.

If 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 but for the purpose of this project will be undertaking commercial or economic activity.

The balance between your total eligible project costs and the amount of grant awarded must be funded by the organisation receiving the grant.

For industrial research projects, you can get funding for your eligible project costs of:

• up to 80% if you are an active farming, growing or forestry business based in England, Wales or Scotland

• up to 70% if you are a micro or small organisation, including active farming, growing or forestry businesses based in Northern Ireland

• up to 60% if you are a medium sized organisation

• up to 50% if you are a large organisation

For more information on company sizes, please refer to the company accounts guidance.

If you are applying for an award funded under State aid Regulations, the definitions are set out in the European Commission Recommendation of 6 May 2003.

Research participation

The research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 60% of the total eligible project costs. If your consortium contains more than one research organisation undertaking non-economic activity, this maximum is shared between them. Of that 60% you can get funding for your eligible project costs of up to:

• 80% of full economic costs (FEC) if you are a Je-S registered institution such as an academic

• 100% of your eligible project costs if you are an RTO, charity, not for profit organisation, public sector organisation or research organisation

Eligibility criteria for claiming 80% of FEC funding

1. Research organisations using the Je-S system must submit their costs through the Je-S system which calculates the 80% FEC figure.

2. On IFS, only the 80% FEC output should be entered at 100% funding.

3. Applicants do not need to show the remaining 20% on the finance table.

To find out more see our: Cost Guidance for Academics.

Your proposal

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.

Portfolio approach

We want to fund a variety of projects across different technologies, technological maturity, markets, theme, practices and processes, farming sectors and regions. We call this a portfolio approach

Specific themes

Your project must address a significant industry challenge or opportunity in at least one or more of the following sectors:

• agriculture

• horticulture

• agro-forestry

Research categories

We will fund industrial research projects as defined in the guidance on categories of research.

Projects we will not fund

We are not funding projects that:

• do not benefit farmers, growers or foresters in England

• are based on equine systems ​

• involve wild caught fisheries

• are for the production of crops or plants for medicinal or pharmaceutical use

• are based on funded crop variety plot trials

• are based on existing demonstration trials or projects

• include aquaculture, such as algae and seaweed, for human consumption

• fermentation systems for bacteria, yeast or fungi​ or cultivated meat

We cannot fund projects that are:

• dependent on export performance, for example, giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it exports a certain quantity of bread to another country

• dependent on domestic inputs usage, for example, giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it uses 50% UK flour in their product

28 April 2025

Recorded briefing, scope and process: watch the recording

Briefing slides are available to download from Supporting Information

28 April 2025

Support Facilitator grant Rd 1

30 April 2025

Live Q&A event: join here at 10am

26 June 2025

Full ADOPT Grant Rd 2 open date

30 July 2025

Applicants notified

1 November 2025

Project start from

Before you start

You must read the guidance on applying for a competition on the Innovation Funding Service before you start.

Before submitting, it is the lead applicant’s responsibility to make sure:

• that all the information provided in the application is correct

• your proposal meets the eligibility and scope criteria

• all sections of the application are marked as complete

• that all partners have completed all assigned sections and accepted the terms and conditions (T&Cs)

You can reopen your application once submitted, up until the competition deadline. You must resubmit the application before the competition deadline.

What we ask you

The application is split into three sections:

1. Project details.

2. Application questions.

3. Finances

Accessibility and Inclusion

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.

You can contact us at any time to ask for guidance.

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).

1. Project details

This section provides background for your application and is not scored.

Do not include any website addresses (URLs) in your answers.

Application team

Decide which organisations will work with you on your project and invite people from those organisations to help complete the application.

Application details

Give your project’s title, start date and duration.

Research category

Select the type of research you will undertake.

Project summary

Describe your project briefly. We use this section to assign the right experts to assess your application so you must be clear about which agricultural, horticultural or agro-forestry area you are working in.

Your answer can be up to 400 words long.

Public description

Describe your project in a way that you are happy to see published. Do not include any commercially sensitive information. If we award your project funding, we will publish this description. This can happen before you start your project.

Your answer can be up to 200 words long.

Scope

Describe how your project fits the scope of the competition by:

• indicating which on-farm or immediate post farmgate challenges or opportunities you are addressing

• summarising how your project will be testing and trialling on-farm or immediate post farmgate solutions that are either new or not yet widely used

If your project is not in scope, it will not be sent for assessment. We will tell you the reason why.

Your answer can be up to 400 words long.

2. Application questions

The assessors will score all your answers apart from questions 1 to 4. You will receive feedback for each scored question. Find out more about how our assessors assess and how we select applications for funding.

You must answer all questions. Do not include any website addresses (URLs) in your answers.

Question 1. Applicant location (not scored)

You must state the name and full registered address of your organisation and any partners or subcontractors working on your project.

You must also provide a list of any farmers, growers or foresters claiming or receiving grant funding in the project.

Note: you must have a minimum of 50% of any grant requested by farmers, growers or foresters in the project, allocated to farmers, growers or foresters based in England.

We are collecting this information to understand more about the geographical location of all applicants.

Your answer can be up to 400 words long.

Question 2. Animal testing (not scored)

Will your project involve any trials with animals or animal testing?

You must select one option:

• Yes

• No

We will only support innovation projects conducted to the highest standards of animal welfare.

Further information for proposals involving animal testing is available at the UKRI Good Research Hub and NC3R’s animal welfare guidance.

Question 3. Permits and licences (not scored)

Will you have the correct permits and licences in place to carry out your project?

We are unable to fund projects which do not have the correct permits or licences in place by your project start date.

You must select one option:

• Yes

• No

• In process of being applied for

• Not applicable

Question 4. Farmers, growers or foresters details (not scored)

The project lead must confirm that they are a farmer, grower or forester based in England. You must provide details of your current engagement in English farming, growing or forestry operations, as follows:

• your name and role in the business

• the trading names of your farming, growing or forestry businesses if different from your registered name

• which county your main farming, growing or forestry activity is based in

• what you grow or produce, and the scale of the operation

We will use these answers to confirm that you are eligible to apply as the project lead and that you are a commercial farming, growing or forestry business deriving income from these agricultural sectors.

Your answer can be up to 400 words long.

Question 5. What is the idea or solution you have identified to trial on-farm?

What is the problem that you are trying to fix, and what idea or solution do you wish to test?

Explain:

• what the idea or solution is

• where did you hear about it

• what is the problem this is seeking to address, and how this also affects other farming, growing or forestry businesses

• why is this idea or solution better than what already exists

• how will it solve the problem you have identified

Your answer can be up to 400 words long.

Question 6. How will you trial and test this idea or solution on-farm?

What is your approach to carry out this trial or experiment and what will be the focus of this project?

Explain:

• how do you plan to test this on farm

• how you will create a robust trial design to maximise the potential impact of the research

• how will you improve on any similar trials or experiments that have already been conducted on this topic

• how will you manage the trial and capture data to allow meaningful analysis of the results

• the nature of the outputs you expect from the project, for example, reports, data records, videos

Your answer can be up to 400 words long.

You can submit one appendix to support your answer. It can include diagrams and charts. It must be a PDF no larger than 10MB. It can be up to two A4 pages and must be legible at 100% zoom.

Question 7. Team and resources for the trial

Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

Explain:

• the roles, skills and experience of all members of the project team that are relevant to the approach you will be taking

• the resources, equipment and facilities needed for the project and how you will access them

• the details of any vital external parties, including subcontractors, who you will need to work with to successfully carry out the project

• the current relationships between project partners and how the project will maintain a farmer or grower-led focus

You must also provide details of the ADOPT Project Facilitator who is working with the project, including their name, skills, experience and their business relationship, if any, to your project or partners.

Your answer can be up to 400 words long.

You can submit one appendix, with a short summary of the main people working on the project to support your answer. It must be a PDF no larger than 10MB. It can be up to two A4 pages and must be legible at 100% zoom.

Question 8. Outcomes and impacts

What improvements will this idea or solution offer you and other farmers, growers or foresters like you?

Explain how your idea or solution will impact:

• productivity

• resilience

• sustainability and progression towards net zero emissions

Explain, how you have determined whether the proposed idea or solution has any negative impacts, and how you have mitigated against them

How could the idea or solution be adopted by other farmers, growers or foresters?

Describe:

• the applicable farming or forestry business sectors

• the ease of integration or adoption into existing systems

Your answer can be up to 400 words long.

Question 9. Adoption and communication of results

How are you going to communicate and share the outputs from the trial or experiment during and after your project to help with adoption?

Explain:

• Who is the target audience or applicable farming sector for your communication

• What methods or approaches will you use to reach your target audience, for example physical events, social media, newspapers, journals

• what other organisations will you collaborate with to share your project idea and results with the wider farming community

• how you expect to use the results generated from the project to be used by your project team and other farmers

Your answer can be up to 400 words long.

Question 10. Project management and risks

How will you and your Project Facilitator manage the project effectively?

Explain:

• the main work packages of the project, indicating the responsible lead person assigned to each and the total cost of each one

• your approach to project management, identifying any major tools and mechanisms you will use to get a successful and innovative project outcome

• a risk register identifying the key risks including, but not limited to, technical, commercial, managerial, and environmental

• your project plan in enough detail to identify any links or dependencies between work packages or milestones

Your answer can be up to 600 words long.

You must submit a project plan or Gantt chart as an appendix to support your answer. It must be a PDF and can be up to two A4 pages long and no larger than 10MB in size. The font must be legible at 100% zoom.

You must also submit a risk register, indicating the main risks for your project, including, but not limited to, technical, commercial, managerial, and environmental.

You must include any identified interdependencies between these risks and the likely impact. It must be a PDF, up to two A4 pages long and no larger than 10MB in size. The font must be legible at 100% zoom.

Question 11. Costs and value for money

How much will the project cost and how does it represent value for money for the team and the taxpayer?

In terms of your project goals, explain:

• your total eligible project costs

• the grant amount you are requesting

• how each partner will finance their contributions to your project

• how this project represents value for money for you and the taxpayer

• what your project would look like without public funding

• how it compares to what you would spend your money on otherwise

• the balance of costs and grant across the project partners

• any subcontractor costs and why they are critical to your project

Your answer can be up to 400 words long.

3. Finances

Each organisation in your project must complete their own project costs, organisation details and funding details in the application. Academic institutions must complete and upload a Je-S form.

Farmers only:

• farmers are able to calculate their trial expenses based upon labour day rate or rate per Hectare

• all applicable trial expenses can be rolled in to one single cost and entered in the “other costs” category which is validated during the set-up stage and will be accepted at claims stage

For an overview on what costs you can claim, see our project costs guidance. Note this is general guidance, for specific guidance please see the eligibility section in this competition. You can also view our application finances video.

Assessment

Your application will be reviewed by three independent assessors based on the content of your application and their skills or expertise relevant to your project. All of the scores awarded will count towards the total score used to make the funding decision unless you are notified otherwise.

You can find out more about our assessment process in the General Guidance.

Background and further information

This funding is from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) Farming Innovation Programme and is being delivered in partnership with Innovate UK.

The Farming Innovation Programme is made up of three funds: the Industry led R&D Partnerships Fund, Farming Futures R&D Fund and the ADOPT Fund.

This competition is part of the ADOPT Fund. This fund aims to:

• support collaborative farmer-led, on-farm trials or experiments to generate, test and demonstrate innovative practical solutions to farming challenges

• create new routes for collaborative peer-to-peer learning and knowledge exchange between farmers, growers and foresters to facilitate the adoption of the new technology, processes and practices

• drive profitability, productivity and sustainability by increasing the adoption of technology, processes and practices by the farming sector, including by those not directly participating in ADOPT

• enhance skills and capabilities around innovation and R&D

• increase awareness amongst farmers, growers and foresters of how innovation can benefit them and encourage them to make use of and share results and learning of successful and unsuccessful innovation projects.

ADOPT has two different types of grants available depending on the needs of the grant applicant:

1. A small Support Grant to access professional assistance from an industry expert to help develop an application to the Full ADOPT Grant. These small Support Grants are intended for applicants who are less familiar with Innovate UK systems. You do not have to apply for a Support Grant in order to apply for a Full Grant.

2. A Full ADOPT Grant will support collaborative farmer-led, on farm trials or experiments.

Innovate UK Business Connect will be hosting the ADOPT Project Facilitator database. This will include the names of individuals who can help farmers turn ideas into a potential funding opportunity and support in the application submission for ADOPT. Farmers, growers and foresters will be able to request a list of registered facilitators from Innovate UK Business Connect.

The ADOPT programme will run a number of continuous competitions over the financial year. Each subsequent round's opening date will be added to the dates tab.

The ADOPT Support Hub, run by ADAS, have been commissioned to work on ADOPT and they can support applicants and funded projects throughout their journey.

Briefing recording and slides

Briefing recording and slides are available to download.

Applicant Briefing Template ADOPT.pdf (opens in a new window)

What happens if you receive a grant offer

If you have passed your initial assessment and have received an email with a grant offer, you will be asked to complete the project set up process on the Innovation Funding Service (IFS).

We will ask for information that will allow us to undertake mandatory checks on your organisation and the eligibility of your costs, as well as review the documentation for your project.

You must follow the unique link embedded in your email notification. This takes you to your project's dedicated IFS Set Up portal, where we gather the information required to set up your project.

Watch our video on what steps there are before a project starts or read more about Project Setup in our general guidance.

If your application is unsuccessful

If you are unsuccessful with your application this time, you can view feedback from the assessors. This will be available to you on your IFS portal following notification.

Sometimes your application will have scored well, and you will receive positive comments from the assessors. You may be unsuccessful as your average score was not above the funding threshold or your project has not been selected under the portfolio approach if this is applied for this competition.

We would like to remind you that eligible non-funded business can still benefit from fully funded and bespoke support from the Innovate UK Business Growth service.

Find a Project Facilitator and project partner

You must have a Project Facilitator as part of the project team to be eligible for this competition and they must be listed in the ADOPT Innovate UK Business Connect database.

The Project Facilitator is intended to be an industry expert who can provide guidance and support for your project and support with the submission into the FULL ADOPT Grant competition.

If you want help finding a project partner, contact Innovate UK Business Connect.

ADOPT Support Hub

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.

They can:

• act as the first point of contact for the applicant providing advice on scope, suitability or on-farm trial practicalities

• help form connections finding expertise, partners and capabilities necessary for an application

• provide and promote standards on best practice for on-farm R&D

• support the exchange of information and outputs from funded projects to share amongst farmers to enable broad knowledge exchange and dissemination.

Email: adoptsupport@adas.co.uk or call 0800 987 8006. The Support Hub line is open from 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday**.**

Protecting your innovation

A Secure Innovation campaign has been developed to help founders and leaders of innovative startups protect their technology, competitive advantage, and reputation.

This was developed by UK’s National Protective Security Authority (NPSA) and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).

Data sharing

This competition is jointly operated by Innovate UK, and Defra (each an ‘agency’).

Any relevant information submitted and produced during the application process concerning your application can be shared by one agency with the other, for its individual storage, processing and use.

This means that any information given to or generated by Innovate UK in respect of your application may be passed on to Defra and vice versa. This would include, but is not restricted to:

• the information stated on the application, including the personal details of all applicants

• scoring and feedback on the application

• information received during the management and administration of the grant, such as Monitoring Service Provider reports and Independent Accountant Reports

Innovate UK and Defra are directly accountable to you for their holding and processing of your information, including any personal data and confidential information. Data is held in accordance with their own policies. Accordingly, Innovate UK, Innovate UK Business Connect and Defra will be data controllers for personal data submitted during the application.

Innovate UK’s Privacy Policy

Innovate UK Business Connect Privacy Policy

Defra’s Privacy Policy

Innovate UK complies with the requirements of UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, and is committed to upholding data protection legislation, and protecting your information in accordance with data protection principles.

The Information Commissioner’s Office also has a useful guide for organisations, which outlines the data protection principles.

Contact us

If you need more information about how to apply or you want to submit your application in Welsh, email support@iuk.ukri.org 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).

Innovate UK or any of our partners will not tolerate abusive language in any written or verbal correspondence, applications, social media or any other form that might affect staff.

For support with any questions around the scope or eligibility of the competition 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.