Building a National Home for Dual-Use Technology in Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire has long played a critical role in feeding the nation and protecting it. Today, through the strategic lens of UK Food Valley and Greater Lincolnshire Regional Defence and Security Cluster - managed and funded by Lincolnshire County Council, those two historic strengths are being brought together to create a powerful new growth proposition, one rooted in food security, national security and the technologies that increasingly serve both.

Lincolnshire EDGE, developed in partnership with the Greater Lincolnshire Combined County Authority and the University of Lincoln, is poised to secure up to £15 million in investment to maximise innovation and growth through technology between Lincolnshire’s Defence & Security and Agri-Tech clusters.

Few places in the UK can claim such a deep-rooted connection across both agriculture and defence, but in one corner of Lincolnshire, this duality is particularly strong.

West Lindsey is the historic home to the RAF Scampton base, whilst just a few miles away on a leafy working farm, sits the University of Lincoln’s rising star; the Lincoln Institute of Agricultural Technology (LIAT).

And with significant dual use funding earmarked for Greater Lincolnshire, that particular unique combination is creating a powerful proposition for future growth.

As Sally Grindrod-Smith, Director for Planning, Regeneration and Communities at West Lindsey District Council, reflects;

"In this part of Lincolnshire, agriculture and defence are in the blood of our people and our communities. It's always felt really important to us that our future economic growth has been grounded in those historic opportunities and sectors."

Meanwhile, the strength of the wider Greater Lincolnshire proposition lies in the way its history across these two sectors continues to influence its future. The county's rich agricultural landscape, extensive farming expertise and globally significant food production capabilities have created a natural environment for agritech innovation. At the same time, its status as Bomber County, with a proud RAF heritage and extensive defence infrastructure, has fostered skills in engineering, manufacturing, aviation and advanced technologies.

These are not separate stories. Increasingly, they are converging.

Across Lincolnshire, organisations are recognising the economic opportunities that emerge when technologies developed for one sector can be adapted for another. Drones, autonomous systems, sensing technologies, data analytics and remote monitoring all have applications that span both agriculture and defence. What begins as a tool to monitor crop health, optimise yields or improve environmental management can often be applied to surveillance, situational awareness and security operations.

This crossover is one of the reasons Lincolnshire is so well positioned to capitalise on growing government investment in dual-use innovation. The county already possesses many of the ingredients required for success: world-leading research, specialist expertise, operational testing environments, and strong collaboration between academia, industry and the public sector.

Core to West Lindsey’s ecosystem is the agricultural growth corridor stretching along the A15. Bringing together assets including the University of Lincoln, Lincoln Institute of Agricultural Technology (LIAT), Lincolnshire Agricultural Society, educational institutions including Riseholme College, and strategic business locations, the emerging Ag Zone is building a framework for innovation and investment.

"The agricultural growth zone is a space for growth and collaboration in the agricultural sector," explains Sally. "We see real specialism in technology being driven by the university and pushing that right through businesses in this part of Lincolnshire."

At Riseholme, researchers, businesses, farmers and technology developers are already working together to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing modern agriculture. Advances in robotics, autonomous systems, sensing technologies, artificial intelligence, communications and data analytics are helping improve productivity, sustainability and resilience across the food sector. Yet many of these same technologies also have significant defence and security applications.

A short distance away, Scampton presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to provide the capacity, infrastructure and operational environment needed to test, refine and scale those innovations in real-world conditions. The combination of LIAT's research excellence and Scampton's future testbed capabilities could establish Lincolnshire as one of the UK's foremost locations for dual-use technology development, supporting both agricultural and defence innovation.

"What we're really seeing happen is real-life problems meeting the incredible talents of academia and coming up with solutions to make the sector more productive, more profitable and more sustainable."

This vision aligns closely with UK Food Valley's ambition to position Greater Lincolnshire as the UK's leading destination for investment, innovation and growth across the food chain and aligns with Lincolnshire County Council’s growth priorities.

"It's the test bed," Sally explains. "We've got the tech, we've got the RAF presence, the food production, and all those pieces of the puzzle that the university and the college are bringing. Now we need the space to do the testing, the practical application and the further collaboration."

This importance of place also extends beyond infrastructure. It is about people, skills and collaboration. Lincolnshire's strength has always been its ability to bring organisations together around shared opportunities around common purpose.

As Sally notes, "These two embedded sectors joining together are becoming much bigger than the sum of just the parts alone."

The emerging STEP Fusion programme and Trent Clean Energy Supercluster adds a third dimension to Lincolnshire's economic proposition. Just as food security and national security have risen up the political agenda, so too have energy and water security. The clean energy investments taking shape along the Trent corridor will provide the skills, innovation and infrastructure needed to support both agritech and defence, creating a powerful interconnected economy. From engineering to robotics, digital technologies and supply chains, the sectors draw increasingly on the same talent and capabilities.

Acknowledging the shifting political picture, Sally remains positive about the opportunities created by local government changes.

"We've got a long-established tradition of collaborating across this geography regardless of boundaries. And that continues. Yes, it looks slightly different, but we've got really good foundations laid to make that work now."

While local government boundaries are set to change, Lincolnshire's economic strengths do not. The county's future growth in agritech, defence, food, energy and innovation will continue to be driven by collaboration across place-based clusters, with new governance arrangements providing an opportunity to amplify Lincolnshire's voice and raise its profile nationally and internationally.

Referencing the collaborative progress made in recent years across all council tiers, Sally is quick to acknowledge the part played by colleagues in other Lincolnshire councils, and is resolute that West Lindsey District Council, in partnership with others, has formed a unified economic Lincolnshire voice, and is confident of leaving a strong legacy to be driven forward now under new structures.

Looking further ahead, there is a growing confidence that Lincolnshire can position itself as a national leader in rural innovation. Alongside agritech and defence, opportunities in clean energy, water resilience and advanced engineering are reinforcing the region's role as a location where some of the UK's most significant economic challenges can be addressed and where energy, food and security challenges can be tackled in one place.

"There is a huge potential for Lincolnshire to be seen as the place in the UK to understand how rural growth looks and feels," says Sally. "I believe there is an opportunity for us to be seen as global leaders in these sectors."

With significant government focus on food security, defence capability, energy resilience and technological sovereignty, the timing has never been more compelling. Lincolnshire's distinctive combination of agricultural expertise, defence heritage and innovation assets is creating the foundations for a nationally significant cluster where technologies can move rapidly from concept to application.

For Lincolnshire, the opportunity is about more than economic growth. It is about creating a future in which the county's historic strengths are reimagined for a new generation, and in West Lindsey, connecting the innovation developed at Riseholme with the deployment potential of Scampton, and demonstrating how place-based collaboration can deliver solutions to some of the UK's most pressing challenges. Lincolnshire’s profile and rural expertise in nationally important sectors are demonstrating it has the capability and conditions for a strategically significant, thriving rural economy, as a progressive and viable alternative to the metropolitan model.

Sally Grinrod-Smith was interviewed by Kate Storey at the UK Food Valley, managed and funded by Lincolnshire County Council.