Dates:
Competition opens: 5 May 2025
Competition online briefing: 8 May 2025
Competition closes: 25 June 2025, 11:00 am
Interviews: Invitation on 7 August 2025; Panels 15 – 26 September 2025
Applicants notified: 10 October 2025
Project start/end date: Start by 1 January 2026 (always 1st of the month); end by 31 December 2028
Project duration: Between 30 and 36 months
Scope & Specific Themes
Funding collaborative projects developing ambitious solutions to significantly reduce emissions in existing UK farming practices. Projects must address major on-farm or immediate post-farmgate challenges or opportunities and deliver measurable improvements in: productivity, resilience or sustainability and progression towards low emission farming.
Projects must:
- Conduct a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for developed solutions
- Measure carbon impact to enable foot-printing and trading, considering wider environmental benefits
- Encourage dissemination and knowledge exchange within the wider sector
- Align concepts closely with industry priorities, delivering transformative business opportunities
- Address at least one key area: regenerative farming (soil health, water quality, biodiversity), energy (efficiency in controlled environment agriculture, improved glasshouse materials, machinery efficiency), methanisation (biogas from organic waste, renewable energy/fertiliser production, on-farm CH4 and CO2 management), reducing GHG emissions in livestock production (feed additives, housing systems, enhanced breeding), innovations in land management (paludicultural systems, agroforestry, biochar for carbon sequestration, energy crops, biomass)
Projects that will not be funded
- Projects not benefiting English farmers
- Previously submitted or failed projects (unexploited, non-compliant, overdue reports)
- Projects unrelated to on-farm or immediate post-farmgate emissions reduction
Eligibility
- Project costs: £1 million – £2.5 million
- Lead: UK registered business of any size, collaborating with at least one other UK organisation (business, academic, charity, RTO, public sector, not-for-profit) and involving at least one grant claiming business. If the lead organisation is an academic institution or RTO, it must collaborate with 2 businesses of any size.
- Subcontractors: UK-based preferred; overseas subcontractors only with strong justification
- Business, academic institution or RTO may lead only 1 application, but can collaborate in 2 applications
Funding Rates
Total eligible project costs (£12.5 million pot):
| Organisation Size/Type | Funding rate |
| Micro/small organisation | <70% |
| Medium organisation | <60% |
| Large organisation | <50% |
Up to 100% of eligible costs for RTOs, charity, not for profit, public sector, or research organisation. 80% of full
economic costs (FEC) covered for Je-S registered institutions (such as an academic).
How PNO can support you
The UK team has a strong track record in securing some of the most competitive national and European grants on behalf of its clients, with a full understanding of how a project should be presented to stand the highest chance of success. Each year in the UK alone, we are responsible for the submission of more than 100 funding applications across all sectors and priority areas. Based on this extensive experience, through careful project selection and using key insight into how a project should be best positioned, we consistently achieve success rates that are more than 5 times the typical success rates for UK national schemes and EU programmes.
For further information or to discuss a project idea please contact PNO Consultants
0161 488 3488 | info.uk@pnoconsultants.com | https://www.pnoconsultants.com/uk/
