Defra has put up to £13 million behind collaborative research and development that solves real problems on farm, and applications close on 14 October 2026.
This is round five of Small R&D Partnership Projects, part of the Farming Innovation Programme. Defra funds it and Innovate UK delivers it. Projects need to cost between £1 million and £3 million in total, run for up to 30 months, and put something useful in the hands of farmers, growers or foresters in England.
Below, I have explained the key things you need to know about this competition before you apply: who is eligible, how much funding is on the table, and what the application process looks like.
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Who is Eligible?
Your Organisation
To lead a project, you must be a UK registered business of any size.
The project has to be collaborative. You need at least two organisations claiming grant funding, and at least one of them must be a UK registered micro, small or medium-sized enterprise. No single organisation can claim more than 70% of the total project costs.
You can work with the following as collaborators:
- Academic institutions
- Charities
- Not-for-profits
- Public sector organisations
- Research and technology organisations (RTOs)
- UK registered businesses of any size
Your Project
Your project must:
- Have total eligible costs of between £1 million and £3 million
- Last up to 30 months
- Start by 1 April 2027 and end by 31 March 2030
All funded work must be carried out in the UK, and you must intend to exploit the project results in England.
Your project must also:
- Address a challenge or an opportunity on farm, or immediately after the farm gate
- Benefit farmers, growers or foresters in England
- Deliver commercially relevant outputs, not research findings alone
- Fall into one of the four subsectors, which are farmed animals, plants, novel food production systems, and bioeconomy and agroforestry
- Improve productivity, sustainability, resilience or progress towards net zero
- Involve end users and the UK research community, and share what you learn with the wider sector
- Meet animal welfare standards, with the right permits and licences in place before it starts
Defra won't fund projects that:
- Are equine specific
- Are for aquaculture, whether for fish production or for human consumption
- Depend on export performance, or on using domestic goods over imported ones
- Don't benefit farmers, growers or foresters in England
- Grow crops or plants for medicinal or pharmaceutical use
- Involve cellular or acellular production systems, or fermentation of bacteria, yeast or fungi for human consumption
- Involve wild caught fisheries
How Much Funding Can I Apply For?
The amount you can claim depends on your organisation's type and size and the sort of research your project involves.
Total eligible project costs range from £1 million to £3 million, and this competition only funds industrial research.
Applying as a Company
| Project Type | Micro and Small | Medium | Large |
|---|---|---|---|
| Industrial Research* | 70% | 60% | 50% |
*Industrial research refers to planned research aimed at acquiring new knowledge for developing new products, processes, or services.
Funding Example
Say your consortium runs a £2 million project and you are a small business claiming £800,000 of those costs. Industrial research is funded at 70% for micro and small companies, so your grant would be £560,000. You will need to fund the remaining £240,000 from other sources, like R&D Tax Relief, investment or loans.
Applying as a Non-Commercial Organisation
Non-economic organisations can share up to 30% of the total eligible project costs on this competition, and they are funded at higher rates:
- Up to 100% of eligible costs if you are a charity, not-for-profit, public sector organisation, research organisation, or RTO
- Up to 80% of full economic costs (FEC) if you're a Je-S-registered institution, like a university
How Do I Apply?
The deadline for applications is 14 October 2026.
Applications are submitted via Innovate UK's Innovation Funding Service (IFS) portal.
The application is split into four sections:
Project Details
This section covers the basics of your project and your consortium:
- Application details
- Application team
- Project summary
- Public description
- Scope
Most answers in this section are limited to 400 words.
Application Questions
There are 16 questions in total:
- Six unscored administrative questions covering topics like animal testing, permits and licences, international collaboration and Trusted Research and Innovation
- Ten scored questions covering your need or challenge, approach and innovation, team and resources, market awareness, outcomes and route to market, wider impacts, project management, risks, added value, and costs and value for money
You can include appendices (PDFs of up to two A4 pages) for the approach and innovation, team and resources, project management, and risks questions.
Finances
Every partner claiming grant completes their own finance section, setting out their project costs and how they will fund their share.
Project Impact
This section collects equality, diversity and inclusion data about your project team, and it is not scored.
Your application will be reviewed by five independent assessors. Their individual scores will be combined to determine your final result.
If you're successful, you'll be notified by 15 December 2026. Applications that pass the written assessment will be invited to an interview between 4 and 9 December 2026.
Like with most competitions, Innovate UK takes a 'portfolio approach' by funding projects across different technologies, markets and technological maturities. This means that a strong score won't necessarily guarantee that your application will be successful.
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