Horticulture Innovation Australia Limited (Hort Innovation) is seeking expressions of interest from suitably qualified and experienced organisations with ideas for investment in transformational research and development projects aimed at accelerating on-farm safety and efficiency through innovation.

This invitation is for suitably experienced and qualified respondents to submit ideas for co-investment in transformational research and development. The goal is to deliver a program that accelerates on-farm safety and efficiency through innovation. Your expression of interest (EOI) must address the objectives and scope outlined below.

The key objectives of this program are to:

•  Significantly reduce musculoskeletal injuries in high-labour horticulture
• To decrease the incidence of joint, ligament, muscle and tendon injuries among farm workers through the implementation of innovative technologies, directly addressing the most common workplace hazard in horticulture.
•  Enhance operational efficiency through technology-driven labour solutions.
• To improve farm productivity and minimise labour disruptions during critical periods (e.g., harvesting, pruning, thinning) by integrating and evaluating technologies that address physical limitations and streamline manual tasks.
• Enable commercial pathways and scalable adoption of proven technologies
• Establish clear commercialisation pathways and deployment strategies to support the industry-wide adoption of validated technologies. For non-commercial research organisations, this may include forming partnerships with commercial entities capable of scaling and delivering the solutions beyond the life of the project.