Get £2,500 to Hire an ADOPT Project Facilitator in England: ADOPT Facilitator Support Grant Round 10 (2026) Application Guide

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The ADOPT Facilitator Support Grant is open for Round 10. It offers a fixed £2,500 grant to an eligible farming, growing, or forestry business in England that wants professional help developing and submitting a Full ADOPT Grant application. The current competition closes at 11:00am UK time on 12 August 2026.

This is development support, not a grant for machinery, buildings, stock, or routine farm costs. The money is intended for an external Project Facilitator who can help turn a practical on-farm idea into a properly scoped Full ADOPT proposal. The eventual Full ADOPT project must test a new or not-yet-widely-used idea or solution in real on-farm or immediate post-farmgate conditions.

The official opportunity is run jointly by Innovate UK and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) through the Farming Innovation Programme. The front matter uses Innovate UK as the source because it is the named funding organisation on the official opportunity page and the body of the competition brief.

At a glance

The £2,500 is paid after the successful participant has submitted an eligible Full ADOPT Grant application for assessment and supplied the evidence required for a claim. It is therefore important to plan the support work around the Full ADOPT deadline that fits the applicant’s idea, rather than treating this as an unrestricted cash award.

What the support grant pays for

ADOPT stands for Accelerating Development of Practices and Technologies. The support grant is for a farmer, grower, or forester who has identified a worthwhile idea but needs help preparing a Full ADOPT application. The facilitator can help define the practical problem, test whether the proposal fits the competition scope, shape a credible trial plan, identify measures of success, and assemble a stronger submission.

The intended Full ADOPT project is a farmer-led on-farm trial or experiment. It should address a significant challenge or opportunity and have the potential to improve productivity, resilience, sustainability, or progress towards net zero farming. It should also produce learning that can help other farmers, growers, or foresters in England decide whether and how to adopt the approach.

Examples of suitable directions might include a new approach to managing inputs, an unfamiliar production practice, a farm-scale technology that has not yet been widely adopted, or a method for improving resource efficiency. The key question is not whether the idea sounds fashionable. It is whether the applicant can explain the problem, why the proposed solution may improve on current practice, how it will be tested, and what other businesses could learn from the result.

The facilitator is not a substitute for the applicant’s operational knowledge. The business must supply accurate information about its activities, location, production system, constraints, and proposed trial. The facilitator’s role is to help organise that knowledge into the format required by Innovate UK and to make the route from idea to Full ADOPT application clear.

Who can apply

Round 10 is open to a single active farming, growing, or forestry business of any size based in England. The lead organisation must be able to evidence that it is an established commercial business. The official guidance expressly includes sole traders and partnerships, so an applicant does not need to be a large company or a particular corporate structure.

The applicant must have a UK bank account. The business should be able to give a consistent account of its registered identity, trading name where relevant, address, county, and farming, growing, or forestry activity. A County Parish Holding (CPH) reference may be relevant to the location information requested in the application, but the official form asks applicants to provide it where relevant rather than treating it as a universal field for every business.

The competition is not open to organisations that are not profit-driven or do not have a commercial focus. The current guidance specifically excludes Community Interest Companies and charities. A business should also check that it is not in financial difficulty and has no unresolved issues that could affect Innovate UK’s financial viability or eligibility checks.

There are additional participation rules. The applicant must work with an external Project Facilitator who is registered in the Innovate UK Business Connect facilitator database. Subcontractors are not allowed in this competition. A farmer, grower, or forester may submit only one application in a competition round and may receive a maximum of two Facilitator Support Grants in total.

What the future Full ADOPT proposal must cover

The support grant is tied to a proposed Full ADOPT application, so an applicant should check the underlying idea before applying. The planned project must test and trial an idea or solution that is new or not yet widely used. It must be carried out on-farm or in an immediate post-farmgate setting, rather than being an existing demonstration project or a general business expansion plan.

The project should address a meaningful industry challenge or opportunity in agriculture, horticulture, or agro-forestry. The proposal must explain how the results could benefit other farmers, growers, or foresters in England. A strong concept has a defined baseline, a practical test, measures that can actually be collected during the work, and a route for sharing what was learned.

The competition will not fund a proposal that does not benefit farmers, growers, or foresters in England. Other exclusions include funded crop-variety plot trials, existing demonstration trials or projects, production of crops or plants for medicinal or pharmaceutical use, cultivated meat, equine systems, wild-caught fisheries, and aquaculture such as algae or seaweed for human consumption. The rules also exclude projects dependent on export performance or on using a set percentage of domestic inputs.

These exclusions are useful at the planning stage. A proposal may be technically interesting but still unsuitable if it is mainly routine production, a commercial rollout with no meaningful trial, or a project whose principal beneficiary is outside the eligible farming, growing, and forestry community in England.

How the application is structured

The Innovation Funding Service application has three parts: project details, application questions, and finances. All sections must be complete before submission. Applicants can reopen a submitted application up to the competition deadline, but they must resubmit it before the deadline for the final version to count.

1. Project details

The project details section is background information rather than a scored section. Give the Support Grant a clear title, proposed start date, and duration. For Round 10, the support-grant duration must be three months.

The project summary can be up to 250 words. It should identify the Full ADOPT idea and make clear whether the subject is agricultural, horticultural, or forestry-related. The summary is used to assign appropriate assessment expertise, so avoid a generic description that could apply to any business.

The scope response can be up to 400 words. Explain how the planned Full ADOPT project will test an idea or solution on-farm or immediately post-farmgate and why the approach is new or not yet widely used. If the proposed project is outside scope, it will not be sent for assessment.

2. Application questions

The form asks every applicant to answer all questions. Questions 1 to 7 are not scored, while the later substantive questions are assessed.

Question 1 asks for the applicant’s location, including the business name, full registered address, and CPH where relevant. Question 2 asks about the applicant and business: role, trading names, county, and what the business grows or produces.

Questions 3 to 7 cover animal testing, permits and licences, international collaboration, export licences, and Trusted Research and Innovation considerations. Answer these accurately. If a proposed Full ADOPT trial involves animals, the applicant must address that honestly and follow the relevant welfare requirements. If permits or licences are required, they need to be in place by the project start date. The form also asks for details of any international collaboration or engagement, and whether export-control or national-security considerations apply.

Question 8 asks what idea or solution the applicant wants to trial. Describe the problem, where the idea came from, why the problem matters to other businesses, why the approach may be better than existing practice, and how the on-farm test will work.

Question 9 asks how the idea could benefit other farmers, growers, or foresters. Link the expected improvements to productivity, resilience, sustainability, or progress towards net zero emissions. Explain the sectors that could use the results and how the approach might fit into normal systems.

Question 10 asks about the Project Facilitator and the proposed Full ADOPT team. Give the facilitator’s name, relevant skills and experience, and business relationship to the project. Include other team members, resources, equipment, facilities, and any additional parties needed for the trial.

Do not put website addresses or links in the application answers. The competition guidance says URLs in answers will not be viewed or opened. Use plain descriptions of organisations, evidence, and relationships instead.

3. Finances

In the finance section, enter the name of the registered Project Facilitator in the “other costs” line and enter total costs of £2,500. The facilitator’s name must also appear in Question 10. Do not add subcontractors or unrelated farm expenditure to this grant request.

Choosing and working with a facilitator

The facilitator must be registered in the Innovate UK Business Connect database. Start by identifying someone with experience relevant to the proposed trial, not simply someone who has general form-filling experience. A useful facilitator should be able to ask precise questions about the baseline, trial design, farm calendar, risks, data collection, and the potential value to other businesses.

Before submitting, agree what the three months of support will produce. Useful outputs might include a settled project summary, a scope check, a Full ADOPT question plan, a realistic trial timetable, a draft budget structure, a list of evidence still needed, and a review of the final submission. The applicant should retain ownership of the facts and approve every technical claim. The facilitator can improve structure and clarity, but cannot make unsupported promises on the business’s behalf.

The official guidance recommends contacting Innovate UK at least 15 working days before the closing date if support is needed. That lead time may matter if an applicant needs help understanding the scope, accessibility arrangements, or application process. Innovate UK lists telephone support at 0300 321 4357, with lines open from 9am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm UK time on weekdays excluding bank holidays.

What happens after an award

Successful applicants do not receive the £2,500 simply for submitting the support-grant form. After a grant offer, the participant must complete project setup, sign and upload the Grant Offer Letter, and then develop and submit an eligible Full ADOPT Grant application for assessment.

The Round 10 guidance says the participant must submit a claim within three months of receiving the Grant Offer Letter. The claim needs the Full ADOPT application number showing that the application has gone to assessment and an invoice from the Project Facilitator for the full £2,500. Once the evidence and claim are accepted, the support grant can be paid.

The support grant is therefore best understood as a short, defined preparation project with a clear hand-off into the Full ADOPT process. Applicants should keep records of the facilitator’s work, the final Full ADOPT submission, the application number, and the invoice so the claim does not become an administrative problem later.

A practical preparation checklist

Before opening the form, prepare the following:

• A concise description of the farming, growing, or forestry business and its English location.
• Evidence that the business is established and commercially active.
• UK bank-account information for later checks and project setup.
• A named Project Facilitator who appears in the Innovate UK Business Connect database.
• A clear problem statement and a short description of the idea to test.
• A basic baseline: current costs, output, labour, resource use, risk, or other measure relevant to the problem.
• A realistic outline of the on-farm trial, including what will be compared and what evidence will be collected.
• A list of people, equipment, facilities, permits, licences, and external relationships the Full ADOPT project may need.
• A three-month support plan showing what the facilitator will deliver before the Full ADOPT application is submitted.

Do not wait until the closing morning to resolve eligibility questions, find a facilitator, or assemble business evidence. The deadline is 11:00am UK time on 12 August 2026, and the final submitted version must be complete in the Innovation Funding Service by then.

Official application link

Round 10 is open when this page was checked. Review the current UKRI opportunity page and follow its link to the Innovation Funding Service before applying. Check the live competition page for any notice or correction before submission, especially if applying close to the deadline.