We are running this funding opportunity on the new UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Funding Service so please ensure that your organisation is registered. You cannot apply on the Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S) system.
The project lead is responsible for completing the application process on the Funding Service, but we expect all team members and project partners to contribute to the application.
Only the lead research organisation can submit an application to UKRI.
To apply
Select ‘Start application’ near the beginning of this Funding finder page.
- Confirm you are the project lead.
- Sign in or create a Funding Service account. To create an account, select your organisation, verify your email address, and set a password. If your organisation is not listed, email support@funding-service.ukri.org
Please allow at least 10 working days for your organisation to be added to the Funding Service. We strongly suggest that if you are asking UKRI to add your organisation to the Funding Service to enable you to apply to this Opportunity, you also create an organisation Administration Account. This will be needed to allow the acceptance and management of any grant that might be offered to you.
- Answer questions directly in the text boxes. You can save your answers and come back to complete them or work offline and return to copy and paste your answers. If we need you to upload a document, follow the upload instructions in the Funding Service. All questions and assessment criteria are listed in the How to apply section on this Funding finder page.
- Allow enough time to check your application in ‘read-only’ view before sending to your research office.
- Send the completed application to your research office for checking. They will return it to you if it needs editing.
- Your research office will submit the completed and checked application to UKRI.
Where indicated, you can also demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant. You should:
- use images sparingly and only to convey important information that cannot easily be put into words
- insert each new image onto a new line
- provide a descriptive legend for each image immediately underneath it (this counts towards your word limit)
- ensure files are smaller than 5MB and in JPEG, JPG, JPE, JFI, JIF, JFIF, PNG, GIF, BMP or WEBP format
Watch our research office webinars about the Funding Service.
For more guidance on the Funding Service, see:
References
Applications should be self-contained, and hyperlinks should only be used to provide links directly to reference information. To ensure the information’s integrity is maintained, where possible, persistent identifiers such as digital object identifiers should be used. Assessors are not required to access links to carry out assessment or recommend a funding decision. Applicants should use their discretion when including references and prioritise those most pertinent to the application.
References should be included in the appropriate question section of the application and be easily identifiable by the assessors, for example (Smith, Research Paper, 2019).
You must not include links to web resources to extend your application.
Generative artificial intelligence (AI)
Use of generative AI tools to prepare funding applications is permitted, however, caution should be applied.
For more information see our policy on the use of generative AI in application and assessment.
Deadline
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) must receive your application by 20 March 2025 at 4:00pm UK time.
You will not be able to apply after this time.
Make sure you are aware of and follow any internal institutional deadlines.
Following the submission of your application to the funding opportunity, your application cannot be changed, and applications will not be returned for amendment. If your application does not follow the guidance, it may be rejected.
Personal data
Processing personal data
STFC, as part of UKRI, will need to collect some personal information to manage your Funding Service account and the registration of your funding applications.
We will handle personal data in line with UK data protection legislation and manage it securely. For more information, including how to exercise your rights, read our privacy notice.
Sensitive information
If you or a core team member need to tell us something you wish to remain confidential, email grantspolicy@stfc.ac.uk
Include in the subject line: [the funding opportunity title; sensitive information; your Funding Service application number].
Typical examples of confidential information include:
- individual is unavailable until a certain date (for example due to parental leave)
- declaration of interest
- additional information about eligibility to apply that would not be appropriately shared in the ‘Applicant and team capability’ section
- conflict of interest for UKRI to consider in panel participant selection
- the application is an invited resubmission
For information about how UKRI handles personal data, read UKRI’s privacy notice.
Publication of outcomes
STFC, as part of UKRI, will publish the outcomes of this funding opportunity.
If your application is successful, we will publish some personal information on the UKRI Gateway to Research.
Summary
Word limit: 400
In plain English, provide a summary that clearly and concisely describes your application.
We usually make this summary publicly available on external-facing websites, therefore do not include any confidential or sensitive information. Make it suitable for a variety of readers, for example:
- opinion-formers
- policymakers
- the public
- the wider research community
Guidance for writing a summary
Clearly describe your proposed work in terms of:
- context
- the challenge the project addresses
- aims and objectives
- potential applications and benefits
Core team
List the key members of your team and assign them roles from the following:
- project lead (PL)
- project co-lead (UK) (PcL)
- specialist
- grant manager
- professional enabling staff
- research and innovation associate
- technician
- visiting researcher
Only list one individual as project lead.
UKRI has introduced a new addition to the ‘specialist’ role type. Public contributors such as people with lived experience can now be added to an application.
Find out more about UKRI’s core team roles in funding applications.
Application questions
Vision
Word limit: 500
What are you hoping to achieve with your proposed work?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Explain how your proposed work:
- is of high quality and importance
- has the potential to advance current understanding, generates new knowledge, thinking or discovery within or beyond the field or area
- is timely given current trends, context and needs
- impacts society, the economy or the environment
- promotes wider advocacy, leadership, promotion and championing of public engagement
We expect you to demonstrate:
- a clearly defined rationale for the proposed programme and evidence to support this, including how this links to the aims of the STFC Public Engagement Strategy
- a programme of high-quality public engagement
- that the programme inspires and involves target audiences with stories of STFC science, people, technology or facilities
- that the engagement activities clearly focus on the STFC science programme remit or align with the work of the STFC national and international laboratories and facilities
Approach
Word limit: 1,000
How are you going to deliver your proposed work?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Explain how you have designed your approach so that it:
- clearly describes the different engagement, networking, or capacity building activities planned as part of the project
- clearly identifies target audiences and the appropriateness of the methodology proposed to reach and retain these groups
- provides evidence of audience demand
- demonstrates and builds upon learning from previous activities and wider sector good practice
- is effective and appropriate to achieve your objectives
- is feasible, and comprehensively identifies any risks to delivery and how they will be managed
- engages with a specific public group or groups, relevant to your project’s objectives, working with partner and intermediary organisations where appropriate
- will maximise translation of outputs into outcomes and impacts
- embeds equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI)
- embeds detailed and considered evaluation plans to ensure your approach is fit for purpose, relevant and appropriate to your context
Applicant and team capability to deliver
Word limit: 750
Why are you the right individual or team to successfully deliver the proposed work?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Evidence of how you, and if relevant your team, have:
- the relevant experience to deliver the proposed work
- the right balance of skills and expertise to cover the proposed work
- the appropriate leadership and management skills to deliver the work and your approach to develop others
- contributed to developing a positive working environment and wider community
- a suitable delivery environment (in terms of the place and relevance to the project) to contribute to the success of the work
The roles in funding applications policy has descriptions of the different project roles.
Resources and cost justification
Word limit: 600
What will you need to deliver your proposed work and how much will it cost?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Justify the application’s more costly resources, in particular:
- project staff
- any consumables beyond typical requirements, or that are required in exceptional quantities
- all resources that have been costed as ‘Exceptions’. Applicants from non-Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC) organisations must apply for all requested costs under the Exceptions heading
- evidence of the matched funding arrangements that will be in place, either from your host organisation or project partners
Assessors are not looking for detailed costs or a line-by-line breakdown of all project resources. Overall, they want you to demonstrate how the resources you anticipate needing for your proposed work:
- are comprehensive, appropriate, and justified
- represent the optimal use of resources to achieve the intended outcomes
- maximise potential outcomes and impacts
Any costs eligible to be funded at 100% full economic cost (FEC) should be listed under the ‘Exceptions’ heading to ensure that they are funded at the appropriate level.
Ethics and responsible research and innovation (RRI)
Word limit: 500
What are the ethical or RRI implications and issues relating to the proposed work? If you do not think that the proposed work raises any ethical or RRI issues, explain why.
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Demonstrate that you have identified and evaluated:
- the relevant ethical or responsible research and innovation considerations
- how you will manage these considerations
(Optional) If you are collecting or using data you should identify:
- any legal and ethical considerations of collecting, releasing or storing the data (including consent, confidentiality, anonymisation, security and other ethical considerations and, in particular, strategies to not preclude further re-use of data)
- formal information standards that your proposed work will comply with
You may demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant. Further details are provided in the Funding Service.
Evaluation plan
Word limit: 600
How will the outputs, outcomes and impacts of the project be captured, evaluated and shared?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
You will need to supply clear evidence of the following:
- evidence of learning from the original funded project evaluation
- a detailed evaluation plan including methodology
- how the evaluation is linked to the STFC PE evaluation framework
- how learning from the proposed activity will be captured and shared
You may demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant. Further details are provided in the Funding Service.
The Funding Service will provide document upload details when you apply.
Dissemination plan
Word limit: 400
How will you publicise the resources, outcomes and outputs of the project?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
You will need to supply clear evidence of the following:
- planning for dissemination of the resources, outcomes, outputs, and so on, to relevant audiences
- how wider audiences could benefit through activities such as sharing good practice or sharing learning
You may demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant. Further details are provided in the Funding Service.
Target audience
Word limit: 100
We expect that projects will focus primarily on audiences based in the UK.
Please show the total number estimated number of people who will be reached within each audience group shown below and express this as a percentage (which must total 100%):
- primary school children
- secondary school children (up to 16 years old)
- 16 to 19 year-olds
- teachers
- general public
- families
- other
If you are targeting a specific subset of the general public not mentioned above, please use the entry for ‘general public’ and specify here (for example gender specific or SEN audiences).
You may demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant. Further details are provided in the Funding Service.
Wonder Initiative
Word limit: 300
If appropriate, how will your project engage with the Wonder Initiative audience and what is the anticipated impact?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Please provide details of the following:
- evidence of demand
- evidence of how the audience would be reached
- the appropriateness of the activities to the audience
- the potential impact on the audience
The Wonder Initiative aims to connect people from all backgrounds with our science and technology. Wonder is about giving under-served communities an equal voice by listening, understanding and responding to what people want to know about science and technology.
The Wonder Initiative focuses on working with participants from the 40% most socio-economically deprived areas of the UK, in particular eight to 14-year-olds and their families and carers.
You may demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant. Further details are provided in the Funding Service.
STFC programme area
Word limit: 50
Which of the STFC programme areas are relevant to your project?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Please show the percentage of relevant programme areas, as follows, and approximate percentages (which must total 100%):
- astronomy, solar and planetary science
- particle physics
- particle astrophysics
- nuclear physics
- accelerator science
- computational science
- STFC facilities
- other
Your organisation’s support
Word limit: 250
Provide details of support from your organisation.
Provide a Statement of Support from your organisation detailing how they will support you, as the applicant, and your proposed activities. This should include details of any matched funding that will be provided to support the activity and any additional support that might add value to the work.
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Assessors will be looking for a strong statement of support from your organisation. This information should have been approved for submission by an appropriate organisational authority.
Upload details are provided within the Funding Service on the actual application.
You must also include the following details:
- a significant person’s name, their position and office or department, or all
- office address or web link
Upload details are provided within the Funding Service on the actual application.
Project partners
Add details about any project partners’ contributions. If there are no project partners, you can indicate this on the Funding Service.
A project partner is a collaborating organisation who will have an integral role in the proposed research. This may include direct (cash) or indirect (in-kind) contributions such as expertise, staff time or use of facilities. Project partners may be in industry, academia, third sector or government organisations in the UK.
Add the following project partner details:
- the organisation name and address (searchable via a drop-down list or enter the organisation’s details manually, as applicable)
- the project partner contact name and email address
- the type of contribution (direct or indirect) and its monetary value
If a detail is entered incorrectly and you have saved the entry, remove the specific project partner record and re-add it with the correct information.
For audit purposes, UKRI requires formal collaboration agreements to be put in place if an award is made.
Project partners: letters (or emails) of support
Upload a single PDF containing the letters or emails of support from each partner you named in the project partners section. These should be uploaded in English or Welsh only.
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Enter the words ‘attachment supplied’ in the text box, or if you do not have any project partners enter ‘N/A’. Each letter or email you provide should:
- confirm the partner’s commitment to the project
- clearly explain the value, relevance, and possible benefits of the work to them
- describe any additional value that they bring to the project
- have a page limit of two sides A4 per partner
The Funding Service will provide document upload details when you apply.
If you do not have any project partners, you will be able to indicate this in the Funding Service.
Ensure you have prior agreement from project partners so that, if you are offered funding, they will support your project as indicated in the Project partners section.
For audit purposes, UKRI requires formal collaboration agreements to be put in place if an award is made.
