The Horticultural Quality and Food Loss Network is calling on researchers working within the UK horticulture industry, early career researchers and anyone interested in UK horticultural crop quality and food loss to apply for a share in its first £100,000 funding call.
Applications can be made for a share of £90,000 (individual applications of £5,000-£20,000) Pump Priming funds. This covers short term collaboration funding to develop ideas and research plans or conduct feasibility studies that would allow a project to be developed beyond the pump-priming phase.
There are also two smaller funds of £5,000 each (individual applications of up to £2,000) for Business Interaction Vouchers and Network Visit Funding. The former is intended to develop collaborations between researchers and industrialists, enabling researchers to meet industry partners to develop project ideas and conduct feasibility trials, while the latter will fund meetings between academics from different institutions in order to co-develop ideas and preconcept note proposals.
The Horticultural Quality and Food Loss Network, led jointly by the University of Reading and CHAP partner Cranfield University, aims to be the leading collective voice for the UK horticultural and postharvest community. The aim is to help academics and industrialists work together to develop scientific and technological solutions to tackle food waste and improve quality in horticultural fruit, vegetable and potato crops.
Funded by UKRI’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), it supports the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 to reduce food waste and losses by 50% by 2030. A total of £300,000 will be allocated over the next three years through a competitive transparent process. The funds will be used to address key issues in the area of food quality and losses which will strengthen the quality, collaborative (including industry involvement) and cross-disciplinary nature of future innovative and novel grant proposals to UKRI-BBSRC.
Applications are welcome from UK researchers based at UKRI-eligible institutions. For more information, visit the Food Loss Network website, or email info@foodlossnetwork.com. The closing date for all applications is 5pm on 15 January 2021.
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