Notice

Guidance for applicants: Space for All 2019 (HTML)

Published 14 December 2018

1. GUIDANCE NOTES

The UK Space Agency anticipates making at least £65,000 available under its ‘Space for All’ community funding scheme for financial year 2020/21. This is an extremely competitive process in which we seek to offer small grants up to a maximum of £10,000 for each award.

The scheme is run to support the education and outreach aims and objectives of the UK Space Agency, as set out in its Education, Skills and Outreach Strategy. This, in turn, will support the aims of the UK Space Agency by encouraging and supporting the use of space as an inspiring context for teaching and learning, by addressing the skills needs of the UK space sector and by improving awareness of the UK’s space programme and STEM literacy in general.

2. AIMS OF THE SCHEME

The scheme is intended to support members of the UK space community in their efforts to harness the inspirational value of space in education and outreach within the UK.

The UK Space Agency aims to highlight the achievements of the UK in space and the relevance of space to UK citizens. We also believe that space has an important role to play in inspiring and educating the next generation. The scheme will therefore support activities that:

• capitalise on the inspirational value of space to engage relevant audiences,
• demonstrate new techniques that can be repeated for larger audiences,
• enable a space-related element of a larger activity,
• develop and/or deliver space-related curriculum enrichment activities, and
• deliver activities to promote careers in the space sector.

2.1 Eligibility

The scheme will be open to bids from individuals and organisations who:

• are based in the UK,
• have the support of their sponsoring organisation or work in partnership with an organisation which can receive the funds, and
• can nominate a referee who can support their application.

Eligible organisations include academic or research institutions (including schools, universities, research councils and UK Space Agency partners), charities, trusts and companies (including not-for-profit).

Relevant audiences include young people, students, the public, teachers, opinion formers and the media (including traditional, internet and social media).

2.2 Rules and Regulations

Grants will be awarded in line with the Cabinet Office’s Government Functional Standard for General Grants, through a Grant Funding Agreement (GFA), and subject to standard Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) grant terms and conditions.

1. Grants may cover all types of expenses, including: * contributions to salaries, * costs of materials, and * travel and subsistence.
2. Grants may not cover: * fees for people already in paid employment where the proposed work could be reasonably undertaken as part of their normal duties, * unclear costings and those which do not appear to be based on valid estimates, * expensive items (e.g. equipment or buildings) unless they are intrinsic to the success of the project, or * projects that would go ahead even without UK Space Agency funds.
3. Other than in exceptional circumstances, audiences should be mainly in the UK.

3. THE APPLICATION PROCESS

3.1 Submitting your application

Up to a maximum of two additional sides of A4 may be included with your application form (e.g. text, diagrams or photographs) to support your application. An additional four sides of A4 can be included for evaluation forms, publicity materials and/or resources produced for projects from which this project is a spin-off or extension (if applicable). Any other material submitted will not be included in the grant assessment. We must also receive a signature (by post or electronically) on the application form from an administrative authority in your organisation (Head of Department, Head Teacher or someone else in a senior position in your organisation).

3.2 Deadline

All applications should arrive at the UK Space Agency by no later than 5pm on Friday 7 February 2020.

Submitting your Application Form

By E-mail (preferred)

Please complete and submit the application form and any attachments to Phil Weaver by email [email protected].

By Post

Phil Weaver, UK Space Agency, Harwell Campus, Electron Building, Fermi Avenue, Harwell, Didcot OX11 0QR.

If sending by post, you will receive an email acknowledgement of your application being received. If you do not receive such an acknowledgement, we have likely not received your application.

3.3 Grant Application Assessment

Applications will be referred to a panel of judges who will score them against the criteria below and rank the applications according to their scores. The judges will then meet to finalize the marks and allocate funds to the highest ranked applications.

3.4 Notification and payment of awards

Payment will be by BACS transfer only. Successful applicants must be able to submit their bank account details within 10 working days of notification of the award by completing a Word format AP1 Supplier Maintenance Form (which will be sent at the time of notification). If this is not completed in 10 days, the award may be withdrawn. These details are treated in the strictest of confidence.

Payment is made in arrears, on completion of your project and receipt of your final report, a summary of spend and invoice.

Staged payments may be made, especially if your project requires payments against invoices for large items or against certain milestones. There is space on the application form for you to detail these milestones for us to consider. The milestones need to be agreed with us before you start spending against the award and will be detailed in the grant agreement.

Payment is never made in advance of work being done.

Grants will extend over financial year 2020/2021 from the date the grant funding agreement is executed (signed).

Projects to start no earlier than 1 May 2020. Projects must be completed by Friday 19 March 2021.
The proposed commencement date of the project, that is, from when costs to be reimbursed under the grant can be incurred from, should be the date the grant is executed (signed). Please be aware that it is not best practice to backdate the project commencement date from the date of execution, so successful applicants shouldn’t delay in returning signed grant agreements, risking shortening the project window.

The final claim for the grant will need to be received by the UK Space Agency no later than Friday 19 March 2021 to enable the payment to be processed before the end of the financial year. For this purpose, final report and grant claim form templates will be issued to successful applicants.

4. JUDGING CRITERIA

The main criteria are as follows.

• Ability to explain the relevance of space to UK citizens or to use space to deliver educational aims or increased interest in STEM subjects in the UK. Activities that highlight UK achievements in space are especially welcomed.
• Wider relevance to the UK Space Agency aims as set out in the Education, Skills and Outreach Strategy.
• Need for funding, e.g. would this happen without UK Space Agency funding? Would some other organisation be better suited to fund this?
• Impact – including numbers reached and quality of experience for those involved.
• Sustainability – projects that may become self-sustaining, after the initial injection of UK Space Agency funding, will be looked upon favourably.
• Quality of bid – the bid should demonstrate the ability of the team to deliver the proposed work. Clear costing and evaluation methods should be provided.
• Bids that would leverage funding from other organisations will be looked upon favourably.

4.1 DATA PROTECTION ACT AND PUBLICITY

The information you supply on the application form will be treated in confidence and used by the UK Space Agency in accordance with the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules.

All applications are in confidence, although we propose to publish project titles and summaries of funded projects on the UK Space Agency website and in press releases. If you are not happy about this, please contact us.

The UK Space Agency may also contact you about its space education and outreach programme in the future. The UK Space Agency will not disclose your information to any third parties.

4.2 QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE

If I’d like to propose amending the text of the grant funding agreement, can I do this?

The Grant Funding Agreement (GFA) model template was prepared by government lawyers to be fully compliant with the Minimum Standards for Government Grants and the standard terms and conditions have been tailored to fit specific BEIS requirements. Whilst adaptions of the GFA template are possible and may require clearance by BEIS Legal and Finance, any standard terms and conditions which are not applicable in individual cases do not need to be expressly disapplied.

Can I propose starting the project before 1 May 2020?

We ask that projects commence no earlier than May to us give time to finalize financial matters at the start of the new financial year. By May, we should know our position in regard to the reimbursement of costs expended under projects for 2020.

Can I finish my project after 19 March 2021?

In order to reimburse project costs that have been expended and pay invoices by the end of the financial year, we will need a final report (including project summary, delivery numbers, evaluation report, and financial report) by 19 March 2021. If, for example, the final event of a series of events slips and cannot be delivered until after 19 March 2021, please contact us as soon as possible.

Can anyone apply for an award?

Anyone can apply for an award, but grant recipients must have and maintain, with a reputable insurance company, a policy or policies in respect of all risks which they may incur out of their performance under a grant agreement. At a minimum, grant recipients need to have insurances in place which are required by law, that is, employee liability insurance and cover for death/personal injury.

4.3 HOW TO CONTACT US

If you have any questions that are not answered in these notes for guidance, please contact Phil Weaver at [email protected].