What is the National Soil Carbon Innovation Challenge – Feasibility Study Grants?
The National Soil Carbon Innovation Challenge – Feasibility Study Grants is a grant opportunity to support feasibility studies of lower-cost, accurate technical solutions to measuring soil organic carbon. Successful applicants will deliver a feasibility study that shows technical viability and commercial potential of their proposed solution.
Background
The National Soil Carbon Innovation Challenge: Feasibility Study Grants support successful applicants to conduct feasibility studies that demonstrate the technical viability and commercial potential of your soil carbon measurement solutions.
The objectives of the National Soil Carbon Innovation Challenge program are to:
- fast-track the development of lower-cost, accurate technical approaches to enable land managers to quantify the impact of their land management activities on soil organic carbon
- secure co-investment and foster partnerships that trial and deploy novel soil carbon measurement technological solutions.
There will be other grant opportunities as part of this program, supporting proof of concept and validation and deployment stages of technology development. This stage does not have to be completed to be eligible for future grant opportunities. We will publish details of opportunities in the future.
Funding
The Australian Government has announced a total of $50 million over 3 years for the program. For this grant opportunity, $1 million is available in 2021-22.
The grant amount will be up to 100% per cent of eligible project expenditure (grant percentage).
- the minimum grant amount is $50,000
- the maximum grant amount is $100,000.
Eligible Projects
To be eligible, your project must:
- test the feasibility of your solution to low-cost and accurate soil carbon measurement.
- have at least $50,000 in eligible expenditure.
Eligible activities may include:
- developing a feasibility study outlining your proposed novel method to enable land managers to quantify the impact of their land management activities on soil organic carbon
- collaborating with project partners to plan, design and construct the feasibility study
- activities that assist in the collection or provision of data or research that is directly relevant to the feasibility study. This work may include preliminary work on the technical viability of the proposed solution, the novelty of the proposed solution compared to current methods used and the commercial potential and viability of the proposed solution in Australian settings.
Your feasibility study must outline:
- the technical viability of your proposed solution for low-cost and accurate soil carbon measurement
- the novelty of your proposed solution compared to existing offerings, for an improved systematic approach to measuring soil carbon over time, under different land management practices
- potential capabilities and partnerships which may be required to deliver your solution
- the commercial potential of your proposed solution in Australia and internationally
- how you will measure the success of your proposed solution
- any security issues relating to your proposed solution
Eligible Applicants
To be eligible you must have an Australian business number (ABN) and be one of the following entities:
- an entity, incorporated in Australia
- a publicly funded research organisation
- an Australian State/Territory Government agency or body.
The program can only accept applications where you certify that:
- your project is supported by your board (or chief executive officer or equivalent if there is no board), and that you can complete the project and meet the costs of the project not covered by grant funding
- you have or will have relevant intellectual property arrangements in place in order to undertake your project, should you proceed to subsequent stages of the grant program
- you will be willing to provide research data and outputs to the government and any nominated third party for the purposes of improving knowledge of quantifying soil carbon under different management practices, if you proceed to future stages of the program.
Timing
Applications close 10 December 2021.
