AgriScale – Accelerating Agri-tech Manufacturing: Industrial Research

UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £5 million for projects to close product technology gaps that are preventing movement towards commercial acceptance, scale up and manufacture. This funding is from Innovate UK.

Competition opens:  Monday 30 March 2026
Competition closes: Wednesday 03 June 2026

Description

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), will invest up to £5 million. This is subject to a sufficient number of high quality applications being received.

The aim of this competition is to enable Agri-tech innovators to advance their product performance and reliability and start development of their manufacturing and supply chain capability. Your project should aim to close technology gaps that prevent products being proven, demonstrated and accepted in end user conditions. This will promote commercial engagement and adoption to drive UK Agri-tech frontier industry growth and drive UK agricultural productivity and sustainability.

Your proposal must be a late stage project and demonstrate how you will develop your product to higher levels of performance, reliability and adoption readiness. You must also demonstrate how you will move your business, technologies and products closer to manufacturing readiness.

This competition is being run in parallel with a second competition: AgriScale – Accelerating Agri-tech manufacturing: Experimental Development.

Eligibility

Who can apply

Your project

If your application passes the technical assessment, any awards given to primary agricultural producers are subject to the green box exemption under the WTO Agreement on Agriculture.

See further guidance on green box subsidies WTO Guidance for support in Agriculture. Applicants receiving this type of support must ensure that there is minimal to no distortion of trade and comply with the requirements of Annex 2 of the Agriculture Agreement.

Your project must:

• have total costs of between £250,000 and £750,000
• last between 6 months and 12 months
• start by 1 October 2026
• end by 30 September 2027

Scope

Your Proposal

The aim of this competition is to enable Agri-tech innovators to advance their product performance and reliability and start development of their manufacturing and supply chain capability. Your project should aim to close technology gaps that prevent products being proven, demonstrated and accepted in end user conditions. This will promote commercial engagement and adoption to drive UK Agri-tech frontier industry growth and drive UK agricultural productivity and sustainability.

Your proposal must be a late stage project and demonstrate how it will develop your product to higher levels of performance, reliability and adoption readiness. You must also demonstrate how you will move your business, technologies and products closer to manufacturing readiness.

We want to fund a variety of projects across different technologies, markets, technological maturities and research categories. We call this a portfolio approach.

Specific Themes

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

• technologies that enable automation to reduce labour demands and improve productivity and sustainability in agriculture, forestry, horticulture and aquaculture
• automation and robotic systems and equipment
• automated sensing and observation systems that must include associated data processing and intelligence systems to provide actionable management decisions or direct control actions
• identify specific technology or performance gaps, manufacturing, engineering or regulatory challenges to be addressed through this process
• outline how you will accelerate progress, attract investment, and expedite time to market
• you must be able to demonstrate that the product to be brought to market will drive productivity, sustainability and evidence of farmer or grower demand
• a long term market for the product or service; solutions that have the opportunity for global export would be considered advantageous
• demonstrate a robust business plan that supports production and market scale up
• your project must be seeking to develop and test your products to overcome known technical gaps, increase performance or reliability to levels that are acceptable for commercial end user operation

Technologies and project approaches can include but are not limited to:

• design and test of mechanical, electrical, electronic and software systems for robust and reliable function, operation, reliability and durability
• design for manufacture and assembly
• regulatory and safety compliance testing and approvals including food safety requirements, operational and functional safety, electromagnetic compatibility testing and compliance
• development and testing of software, navigation systems, safety systems, fleet management and deployment systems including cyber security
• software and hardware system optimisation to enable easy integration with existing business management and process hardware, software and systems
• fleet management and fleet deployment hardware and software including; battery, charging, operator interface, support and monitoring systems
• field, workshop and laboratory trials to develop and prove performance, reliability, endurance and machine up-time in end user environments to confirm end user acceptance and benchmark performance
• devices, technologies and systems to enable effective end user product support, diagnostics and repair

Research Categories

We will fund industrial research projects, as defined in the guidance on categories of research.

Projects We Will Not Fund

We are not funding projects that:

• are early stage research and development projects or feasibility studies
• are developing or investigating new unproven design concepts or functionality
• do not specify specific known technology gaps and associated actions to resolve them
• that do not have clear route to market and commercialisation identified
• are equine specific
• involve wild caught fisheries
• involve cellular or acellular production systems, fermentation systems for bacteria, yeast or fungi for human consumption
• are for the production of crops or plants for medicinal or pharmaceutical use
• focus specifically on bioeconomy systems

We 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

Dates

• 30 March 2026 Competition opens
• 08 April 2026 Online briefing event: register to attend
• 29 April 2026 Live in-person AgriScale showcase and consortium building event: register your expression of interest to attend
• 03 June 2026 11:00am Competition closes
• 04 August 2026  Applicants notified
• 01 October 2026 Project start from

How to Apply

You must read the guidance on applying for a competition on the Innovation Funding Service before you start.

Before submitting, it is the lead applicant’s responsibility to make sure:

• that all the information provided in the application is correct
• your proposal meets the eligibility and scope criteria
• all sections of the application are marked as complete
• that all partners have completed all assigned sections and accepted the terms and conditions (T&Cs)

You can reopen your application once submitted, up until the competition deadline. You must resubmit the application before the competition deadline.

What we ask you

The application is split into four sections:

1. Project details.
2. Application questions.
3. Finances.
4. Project Impact.

Parallel Competition: Experimental Development

This competition is being run in parallel with a second competition: AgriScale – Accelerating Agri-tech manufacturing: Experimental Development. To read our easy to understand blog on this second competiton, see below.