Full ADOPT Grant: Round 8
This grant funds on-farm trials that test innovative solutions to improve productivity, resilience, and sustainability, requiring a collaboration between at least two farming/forestry businesses and a registered Project Facilitator.
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Competition Scope & Overview
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will invest up to £5 million for on-farm trials and farm experiment projects. This is subject to a sufficient number of high quality applications being received. This funding is part of Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme, delivered in partnership with Innovate UK. 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 the following:
productivity resilience sustainability and progression towards net zero farming
Your proposal must demonstrate to other English farmers, growers or foresters how the idea or solution will be of benefit to them.
If you are unfamiliar with the Innovate UK application process, you may wish to explore the ADOPT Facilitator Support Grant. The support grant is designed for applicants to engage with an external Project Facilitator to aid in the project scoping and application submission to the ADOPT Full Grant competition.
There is also a Support Hub available for applicants needing to request information or general support.
In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process. This competition has a funding limit, so we may not be able to fund all the proposed projects. It may be the case that your project scores highly but we are still unable to fund it.
We consider a range of factors when determining whether to provide funding to applicants. This includes an assessment of prior conduct, such as any outstanding payments owed to Innovate UK or UKRI. Such factors may influence the funding decision, potentially resulting in a refusal of funding or an award subject to additional scrutiny.
We also reserve the right to adjust funding allocations for any of our competitions. This may be in response to changes in policy, portfolio funding considerations or broader government funding decisions.
This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated in this Innovate UK competition brief. We cannot guarantee other government or third party sites will always show the correct competition information.
Official Applicant Guidance Documents
Applicant Briefing ADOPT process.pdf
These applicant briefing slides provide essential guidance on the ADOPT grant competition process, including eligibility criteria for both the Facilitator Support and Full ADOPT grants. They outline the application requirements, financial rules, and submission procedures necessary for a successful proposal.
Download Official DocumentAssessor guidance ADOPT FULL Grant Rd 8.pdf
This document is the official assessor guidance for the ADOPT Full Grant (Round 8) competition. It outlines the specific criteria and scoring rubrics for each application question, providing essential insights into how proposals will be evaluated to ensure applicants can align their responses with assessor expectations.
Download Official DocumentApplication Questions & Guidance Brief
Every question below carries specific word limits and guidance criteria.
Project summary
Official Guidance
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.
Public description
Official Guidance
Describe your project in detail and 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.
Scope
Official Guidance
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. You must also state the name of the approved ADOPT Project Facilitator who will be supporting you in the project. If your project is not in scope, it will not be sent for assessment. We will tell you the reason why.
Applicant location (not scored)
Official Guidance
You must state the name and full registered address of your organisation, all partners and any 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.
Animal testing (not scored)
Official Guidance
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.
Farmers, growers or foresters details (not scored)
Official Guidance
The project lead must confirm that they are a farmer, grower or forester based in England and the other farming partners must confirm they are based in the UK. All farming partners must provide details of their current engagement in English or UK farming, growing or forestry operations, as follows: name and role in the business; the trading names of the farming, growing or forestry businesses if different from their registered name; which county the main farming, growing or forestry activity is based in; what is grown or produced, and the scale of the operation. We will use these answers to confirm the eligibility of the project lead and that there is at least one other commercial farming, growing or forestry business deriving income from these agricultural sectors.
Permits and licences (not scored)
Official Guidance
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 the process of being applied for, Not applicable.
International collaboration (not scored)
Official Guidance
Does your proposed work involve any international collaboration or engagement? You must provide details of any expected international collaboration or engagement. You must include a list of the names and the countries, any international project co-leads, project partners, visiting researchers, or other collaborators are based in. You must also include details of any subcontractors or service providers. If your proposed work does not involve international collaboration or engagement, your answer must confirm this.
Export licence (not scored)
Official Guidance
You must indicate whether an export control license is required for this project under the academic export control guidance. You must select one option: Yes, No.
Trusted Research and Innovation (not scored)
Official Guidance
You must explain if your proposed project work relates to UKRI’s Trusted Research and Innovation (TR&I) Principles, including: a list of any dual-use (both military and non-military) applications to your research; a list of the areas where your project is relevant to one or more of the 17 areas of the UK National Security and Investment (NSI) Act; whether an export control license is required for this project under the academic export control guidance and the status of any applications; a list of any items or substances on the UK Strategic Export Control List. If your proposed work does not relate to UKRI’s TR&I Principles, your answer must confirm this. We may ask you to provide additional TR&I information at a later date, in line with UKRI TR&I Principles and funding terms and conditions.
What is the idea or solution you have identified to trial on-farm?
Official Guidance
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 you heard about it; what problem you are seeking to address, and how this also affects other farming, growing or forestry businesses; why this idea or solution is better than what already exists; how it will it solve the problem you have identified.
How will you trial and test this idea or solution on-farm?
Official Guidance
What is your approach to carry out this trial or experiment and what will be the focus of this project? Explain: how you plan to test this on-farm; how you will create a robust trial design to maximise the potential impact of the research; how you will improve on any similar trials or experiments that have already been conducted on this topic; how you will 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. 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.
Team and resources for the trial
Official Guidance
Who is in the project team and what are their roles? Explain: the role of the ADOPT Project Facilitator within the project: include their skills and experience, and their business relationship, if any, to your project or partners; 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 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.
Outcomes and impacts
Official Guidance
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.
Adoption and communication of results
Official Guidance
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 the target audience is 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 you will 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.
Project management and risks
Official Guidance
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; 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. 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.
Costs and value for money
Official Guidance
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 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; 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.