Singapore Food R&D Programme

The Singapore Food R&D (SFR) Programme, also called the Singapore Food Story (SFS) R&D Programme, is led by the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) to support research relevant to Singapore's food security and agri-food capabilities. Its first phase addressed sustainable urban food production, future foods and food-safety science and innovation; Phase 2 places greater emphasis on food-security challenges, sustainability and circularity, and food safety as novel foods emerge (SFA, SFR Programme, accessed 30 August 2026; SFA, SFS R&D 2.0, accessed 30 August 2026).

Research domains and programme phases

The programme's current framing covers four connected domains: aquaculture, sustainable urban agriculture, future foods and food safety. The first phase made S$144 million available under RIE2020 for research in sustainable urban food production, future foods and food-safety science and innovation. The second phase, SFS R&D 2.0, received a fresh S$165 million allocation to support aquaculture, agriculture, future foods and food safety (SFA, SFS R&D 2.0, accessed 30 August 2026). These are programme-level allocations over their respective phases, not a universal award or an amount automatically available to every proposal.

Who can apply

Principal Investigators from Singapore-based institutions of higher learning, public-sector agencies, not-for-profit research laboratories and private-sector entities can apply when a grant call is open (SFA, SFR Programme, accessed 30 August 2026). The applicant rule is about the Principal Investigator's institutional base and the specific grant-call requirements; it does not mean that every individual researcher, overseas institution or commercial food project automatically qualifies.

Grant calls and current status

SFS R&D 2.0 has used calls with different purposes, including early-stage Seed support, Research Translation support aimed at demonstrating commercialisation potential, and Future Foods support focused on cost reduction and process improvement. SFA also describes food-safety calls for non-animal New Approach Methodologies for evaluating food innovations (SFA, food-innovation award, accessed 30 August 2026). The current SFR programme page states that all grants are closed and directs prospective applicants to watch for future opportunities (SFA, SFR Programme, accessed 30 August 2026). A historical grant call or awarded project should therefore not be presented as an open application window.

Relationship to other food-support instruments

SFR is a research-and-translation funding framework, not a farm operating licence or an equipment subsidy for routine adoption. SFA's ACT Fund supports local farms in capability upgrading, technology upscaling and industry partnerships, while SFR supports R&D across the wider food-security and food-safety ecosystem. Individual programmes such as AquaPolis or the Seed Innovation Hub may sit within the SFS R&D portfolio, but a named project or sub-programme does not establish that all SFR grants remain open or that every local farm receives the same support.