Funding Competition: Digital Dairy Chain – Collaborative R&D and Growth Round 2 SIPF (UK)

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will work with Digital Dairy Chain for Cumbria, South and West Scotland, led by Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC). They will invest up to £1.1 million in innovation projects.

These projects will stimulate an uplift in the region’s economy through inclusive and innovation led growth.

The aim of this competition is to support collaborative business focussed innovation in Cumbria, South and West Scotland. This is to support the transition to net zero and deliver improved productivity and sustainability in advanced and high value dairy production and manufacturing. They encourage projects that:

• provide solutions that tackle new or emerging needs
• demonstrate a realistic potential to support business growth, scale-up and job creation
• deliver benefit to Cumbria, South and West Scotland, as well as further afield
• enable academic researchers and Research and Technology organisations to collaborate with businesses to help further develop and translate research towards commercially relevant impact and wider societal outcomes
• develop novel approaches to monitor the effectiveness of products

Specific Themes

Your project can focus on one or more of the following:

• novel and high value products from dairy systems
• decarbonising dairy production and manufacturing
• waste minimisation and resource recirculation
• reduced environmental impact and increased sustainability, for example, biodiversity, soil, air and water quality
• sensor development and digitisation to improve productivity, welfare of staff and animals, and product quality including nutritional characteristics
• value addition in the dairy supply chain

Funding Information

• Your project’s total grant funding request must be between £50,000 and £250,000.

Projects they will not fund

They are not funding projects that:

• do not demonstrate potential to positively impact on the economy of Cumbria, South or West Scotland
• deal with plant-based alternatives to milk
• mainly install currently available technologies and involve minimal innovation
• only involve product testing of agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, feeds or additives

Who can apply?

• Your project
  • Your project must:
    • start from 1 October 2024
    • end by 31 December 2026
    • last between 6 and 24 months
    • carry out at least 75% of its project work in Cumbria, South or West Scotland
    • intend to exploit the results in Cumbria, South or West Scotland
  • Under current restrictions, this competition will not fund any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any Russian or Belarusian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian or Belarusian source.
• Lead organisation
  • To lead a project your organisation must:
    • be either a UK registered business of any size or a UK farming business of any size
    • be able to evidence that you are an established business, including sole traders and partnerships
    • have a UK bank account
    • be based in Cumbria, South or West Scotland or carry out significant economic activity in that region
    • collaborate with other eligible grant claiming UK registered organisations
• Project team
  • To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be a UK based farmer or one of the following UK registered:
    • business of any size
    • academic institution
    • charity
    • not for profit
    • public sector organisation
    • research and technology organisation (RTO)
  • Collaborations with Digital Dairy Chain research organisations are encouraged. These organisations are:
    • Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC)
    • University of Strathclyde
    • University of the West of Scotland
    • CENSIS, part of the University of Glasgow
• Non-funded partners
  • Your project can include partners that do not receive any of this competition’s funding. Their costs will count towards the total project costs.
• Subcontractors
  • Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.
  • You can use UK based subcontractors from outside Cumbria, South or West Scotland but you must make the case in your application as to why you could not use suppliers from the specified region.
  • You must provide a detailed rationale and provide evidence of the potential subcontractors you approached and the reasons why they were unable to work with you. They will not accept a cheaper cost as a sufficient reason to use a subcontractor from outside the regions specified.
  • All subcontractor costs must be justified and appropriate to the total project costs and you must select them through your usual procurement process.

For more information, visit Innovate UK.