GRANTS and FUNDING
Research and Innovation Grants
Competitive grant funding opportunities to foster impactful innovation and build collaborative partnerships between industry and academia.
Our Grant Programmes
We have invested over £3.2m in innovation and research grants to improve the sustainability of our food system.
A range of research grants worth from £10,000 to £500,000 were made available. Our grants were awarded through eight competitive rounds and required industry match-funding.
All grant projects related to horticultural production, fresh produce packaging, food and drink processing, or supply chain technologies.
Investing in Research
Through small-scale and larger R&D grants, we are driving innovation to address key issues in the UK's food system.
80+
unique research projects funded.
£3.2m
leveraged through industry co-investment.
19
new products or processes brought to market.
2857
hours of social value delivered by our grant recipients.
Sustainable Innovation
All strands of our competitive grants were designed to deliver improved productivity and sustainability in horticultural food and drink production. Priority themes and scope of acceptable projects included:
Our Grants
We have held eight separate grant funding calls through five different competition strands.
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Business Innovation Vouchers
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Business Sustainability Challenge
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Partner Grants
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Collaborative Research and Development Grants
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Prototyping and Demonstrator Fund
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Social Value
We are committed to inclusive and sustainable economic growth. Our grant recipients are required to deliver social value back to their region through community engagement or education activities.
As a condition of grant funding, recipients were required to commit a corresponding level of time towards social value activity, dependent on the size of the grant awarded.
Our grant project beneficiaries have so far carried out a total of 3,496 hours of social value activities, equivalent to 499 days!
How To
Do Innovation Well
What makes a good innovation project? And how can we improve the standard of innovation in the food system? We evaluated over 70 projects funded by Growing Kent & Medway to compare the characteristics of great innovation. An interactive dashboard is available to highlight these key features.
