Innovative Farmers supports groups of farmers to work directly with researchers to design ‘field labs’ - on farm trials using practical farmer-led approaches. If your field lab requires funding support, you can apply to the Research Fund for a grant.
For projects commencing in autumn 2024: You may submit an Expression of Interest at any time until 1st July 2024. If you are then invited to submit a full proposal, we will send you proposal forms to complete. full applications must be submitted by 31st July 24
For projects commencing in spring 2025: You may submit an Expression of Interest at any time until 1st December. If you are then invited to submit a full proposal, we will send you proposal forms to complete. Full applications must be submitted by 31st January 2024.
NB: All field labs must have been completed by March 2027 latest.
Please submit your Expressions of Interest form to both info@innovativefarmers.org and lgude@soilassociation.org
If you are invited to submit a full application, it takes up to 3 weeks for an external steering group to review applications, so you should account for this in your planning.
There are two tiers of funding:
The maximum allowable grant is £10,000 per field lab. Grants are not subject to VAT. Please speak to the team for further information.
If you have a good idea of what you'd would like to trial, download and complete the Expression of Interest form below and email it to both info@innovativefarmers.org and lgude@soilassociation.org
If you have a particular issue you'd like to explore or topic of interest but you haven't yet developed it much further, submit a field lab idea here. If you are not yet part of a group, we can help find other interested farmers, researchers and a coordinator to partner with.
We will review your submitted ideas and follow them up with you. If we think a field lab is feasible, we will send you a full application form to complete. Please review the criteria below to decide whether to apply.
At this time we particularly welcome applications from the arable sector, as well as farms located in the East of England, Midlands and Wales. However, we will consider all applications that are sent to us.
• Complete by March 2027 at latest
• Involve practical, on-farm trials
• Focus on innovative practices or solutions to increase farm sustainability, resilience and/or animal welfare
• Demonstrate clear motivation and interest from the farming community
• Take place in the United Kingdom
• Have total costs of between £0 - £10,000
• Involve trials on multiple commercial farms
• Include a dedicated researcher and coordinator - we can help matchmake groups with researchers and coordinators
• Agree to producing open-source results, including a final report for publishing on the Innovative Farmers website
We review all applications against a set of criteria that ensures that field labs follow some guiding principles. All applications should address the following objectives:
• Generate useful new knowledge for the sector
• Provide a compelling case for farmer motivation - address the needs and interests of farmers and/or growers
• Demonstrate clear co-design and engagement between farmers and researchers
• Show clear intent to improve farm sustainability, resilience and/or animal health and welfare
• Have a clear, simple but rigorous trial design that will answer the research question(s) that the group wants to answer
• Demonstrate value for money, with appropriate funding sought for proposed outcomes
• Include a realistic plan that will likely meet deadlines for the trials and analysis
Groups comprise of:
• Multiple farmers. A minimum of 2 commercial farms should run trials as part of the field lab (for info, the average number of triallists is 5). Non-triallist farmers/growers are very welcome to join the group to join discussions, learn alongside the trials and contribute their own experiences.
• A researcher (scientist, academic, consultant or independent researcher with proven research experience)
• A coordinator
We encourage you to involve other stakeholders, e.g. processors, seed companies, students, advisors, etc. to take part in the trials or to contribute to the the wider group and discussions.
You are welcome to submit multiple ideas. The Innovative Farmers team will discuss these with internal advisors and partners to determine the best course of action and whether to welcome a full application on one or more of the ideas. Existing field lab groups can also apply for funding for further on-farm trials if the suggested topic is distinct enough from their current trials. Many farmers, coordinators and researchers have been involved in multiple field labs.
If you need further information, email info@innovativefarmers.org or phone 0117 314 5109, between 9:30am to 2pm Monday to Friday. Please leave a message if we are not available.
We can provide help for applicants who face barriers when making an application, perhaps due to a disability, neurodivergence, or anything else that means our services are difficult to use. We can also give support and make other reasonable adjustments for you if your application is successful.
We are very grateful to our funders for enabling farmer-led research to be supported via the Research Fund. For more information on our funders, or if you would like to support the programme, visit the 'Who's involved' page.