Innovate UK, as part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £3 million to fund innovation projects in this competition.
We will be working with a selected pool of investor partners, who have demonstrated that they have the credibility, capability, capacity, and appetite to invest in innovative, technology-led businesses.
The Novel Low Emission Food Production systems competition is part of Innovate UK’s funding support for growing the future economy, as outlined in Innovate UK's Plan for Action.
The aim of this competition is to support UK registered micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to develop novel food production systems. These will be to create new sources of resource efficient, low-emission foods, particularly proteins, while delivering healthy and sustainable diets.
Your project must progress emerging novel food production systems towards commercial viability with the ability to supply mainstream consumer markets.
Your proposal must:
To be offered grant funding your project must:
You can view here the areas of expertise and investment preferences for the investors.
You can apply for this competition before you speak to an investor but initiating dialogue with investors is encouraged.
In addition to investment, the lead investors in the pool can provide you with commercial acumen in, for example:
Successful UK registered SME’s will receive:
In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process. This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated.
Eligibility
Your project
Your project must:
You must only include eligible project costs in your application.
Under current restrictions, this competition will not fund any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any Russian and Belarusian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian and Belarusian source.
If your project’s total costs or duration falls outside of our eligibility criteria, you must provide justification by email to support@innovateuk.ukri.org at least 10 working days before the competition closes. We will decide whether to approve your request.
If you have not requested approval or your request has not been approved by us, you will be made ineligible. Your application will not be sent for assessment.
Lead organisation
To lead a project your organisation must:
More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules.
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 could not use suppliers 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 business can only lead on one application to this competition.
The aim of this competition is to support UK registered micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to develop novel food production systems. These will be to create new sources of resource efficient, low-emission foods, particularly proteins, while delivering healthy and sustainable diets.
Your proposal must:
We encourage projects that:
Your proposal must describe how your project:
Portfolio approach
We want to fund a variety of projects across different technologies and markets. We call this a portfolio approach. We will show preference to applications and investments that demonstrate greater additionality and reduced risk alongside those with a higher ratio of investment to grant.
Specific themes
Your project must have the potential to significantly shift the current state of the art in one or more of the following seven priority areas:
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