Dates:
Competition closes: 20 October 2021, 11am
Applicants notified: 17 December 2021
Project start date & duration: 01 May 2021; between 12 and 30 months
Scope
Projects must:
- provide solutions that tackle new or emerging needs
- demonstrate a realistic potential to support business growth, scale-up, and job creation
- deliver benefit to the region as well as further afield
Activities can solve challenges at any point in:
- horticultural production including the production of novel, high–value compounds from plants
- fresh produce packaging
- food and drink processing
- enabling technologies that underpin the supply chain
Specific Themes
Projects must focus on one or more of the following:
- moving towards net-zero carbon emissions
- minimising waste and maximising recycling
- improving resource use efficiency and sustainability
- increasing productivity
- resilient food production, for example: supply chain resilience, nutritional security
- precision technologies, e.g. sensor technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), internet of things (IoT), robotics
- addressing current and future labour shortages, supply or demand driven, within the K&M agri-food sector
Projects that will not be funded
- do not demonstrate the potential to positively impact on the economy of the K&M area
- 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
- dependent on export performance or, dependent on domestic inputs usage
Eligibility
- Subsidy control and WTO Agreement on Agriculture funding rules apply.
- Projects must be undertaken in the Kent & Medway area and results exploited from K&M.
- Projects must be collaborative, led by a UK registered business of any size and must include at least one of the following: NIAB; University of Greenwich; University of Kent; Canterbury Christ Church University.
- Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK but preferably K&M-based.
- No resubmissions.
Funding Rates
- Total eligible project costs between £50,000 and £250,000 (£2M pot) for Industrial Research.
- Micro/small/medium sized business can claim up to 40%.
- Research organisations can claim 80% of full economic costs (FEC)
- RTOs/charities/non-profit/public sector organisations can claim 100% costs.
