Growing Kent and Medway: Prototyping and Demonstrator Fund – UK

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will work with Growing Kent and Medway (GKM) consortium, led by NIAB to invest in innovative projects. These projects are for the development and demonstration of innovative new technologies in the horticultural food and drink supply chain.

The technologies developed in these projects must aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve sustainability, or deliver improved productivity in horticultural and food production systems.

The competition focuses on:

• horticultural production including the production of novel, high value compounds from plants
• fresh produce packaging
• food and drink processing and manufacturing

Your proposal must focus on innovative technology development and:

• design, develop, test and deploy a technology
• conduct a technical and economic assessment

Specific Themes

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

• moving towards net zero carbon emissions targets
• minimising waste and maximising recycling
• improving resource use efficiency and sustainability
• increasing productivity
• resilient food production, for example: supply chain resilience, nutritional security
• addressing current and future labour or skills shortages, supply or demand driven, within the K&M agri-food sector

Project Size

• Your project’s total grant funding request must be between £50,000 and £150,000. Your total project costs can exceed this amount, but the funding requested must be no more than £150,000.

Projects they will not fund

• They are not funding projects that:
  • are early stage research and development or feasibility studies
  • do not demonstrate the potential to positively impact on the economy of the K&M area
  • involve a research organisation from outside the K&M area
  • focus only on available technologies and involve minimal innovation
  • are a duplicate of existing innovation
  • are for capital investment only
  • fail to commit to delivering social value
  • have a focus on animal or fish-based production systems and animal or fish derived food and drink products
  • grow plants with the primary purpose of producing animal feed
• They 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

Who can apply?

• Any awards given to primary agricultural producers are subject to the green box exemption under the WTO Agreement on Agriculture.
• Your project
  • Your project must:
    • start from 1 May 2024
    • end by 30 September 2025
    • last up to 12 months
    • carry out at least 60% of its project work in the Kent and Medway (K&M) area
    • intend to exploit the results from or in the K&M area
• Lead organisation
  • The lead organisation may be based outside of the Kent and Medway (K&M) area but you must collaborate with at least one organisation in the K&M area.
  • To lead a project your organisation must:
    • be a UK registered business of any size
    • be able to evidence that you are an established business, including sole traders and partnerships
    • have a UK bank account
    • collaborate with other UK registered businesses, research organisations, public sector organisations or charities
    • collaborate with at least one organisation in the K&M area
    • include a minimum of 2 organisations in the consortium
    • intend to exploit the results from or in the K&M area
• Project team
  • To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be a UK based grower, producer, food and drink manufacturer or one of the following UK registered:
    • business of any size
    • academic institution
    • charity
    • not for profit organisation
    • public sector organisation
    • research organisation (RO)
    • research and technology organisation (RTO)
  • Collaborations with research organisations in the K&M area are encouraged but not mandatory. These organisations are:
    • NIAB
    • University of Greenwich
    • University of Kent
    • Canterbury Christ Church University
  • Collaborations with research organisations from outside the K&M area are not permitted in this competition.
  • Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service (IFS) by the lead to collaborate on a project.
• Non-funded partners
  • Your project can include partners that do not receive any of this competition’s funding, for example non-UK businesses. Their costs will count towards the total project costs.
• 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.

For more information, visit Innovate UK.