Guidance

Announcement of opportunity guidance

Published 15 August 2024

This call closes at 11:59pm BST on 11 September 2024.

To apply, all completed documents must be submitted by the respective deadlines, by email to [email protected].

Applications submitted to any other UK Space Agency email address will not be considered.

Background

The UK Space Agency’s Launch Programme Rocketry Competition Fund for organisations makes available grant funding to support organisations looking to develop of new or existing rocketry competitions (see Section 2 for details) aimed at young people, with a focus on those aged from Key Stage 4 (14 years and above) to PhD. Funding will be provided to UK organisations, including industry, academia, and institutional bodies.

The UK Space Agency is inviting applications from organisations interested in establishing or further developing existing rocketry competitions. The call aims to deliver enduring outcomes by ensuring a sustainable talent pipeline and that the necessary skills are available in the UK to deliver a commercially sustainable launch market and thus help deliver the Programme goal for the UK to be Europe’s leading small satellite launch destination by 2030. The objectives of the fund are to:

• provide funding to support new or existing rocketry competitions in order to provide young people with hands-on rocketry experience in order to ensure a sustainable talent pipeline and build a sustainable launch market in the UK
• help reduce the skills gaps in the launch supply chain by providing young people with practical skills and knowledge
• build resilience and expand the UK’s rocketry skills (launch and propulsion related) in order to ensure a commercially sustainable and competitive launch market in the UK

1. Grant call information

1.1 Strategic objectives

Previous research, including the UK Space Agency’s Space Sector Skills Survey 2023, has highlighted that space sector organisations have skills gaps in their current workforce. It also identified that industry experience and post-graduate qualifications are often necessary in order to access careers in the sector and industry prefer employees who are already employed in the industry and/or have extensive experience. Therefore, this does not incentivise industry to provide training effort, leading to a decrease in the skilled labour pool.

The UK’s spaceflight sector needs to bolster its offerings in terms of launch skills and education innovation across the whole supply chain. Therefore, the Rocketry Competition Grant call is designed to provide UK organisations with the opportunity to bid for funding to help support new or existing rocketry competitions in order to help develop launch skills required by industry.

The call is open to applicants from within the launch and rocketry sectors targeting skills development. Examples of proposals may include those which:

1. establish a new rocketry or launch-related competition with a view to provide practical skills and knowledge to those taking part
2. develop or continue developing an existing rocketry or launch-related competition, clearly demonstrating how its development or continuation will help provide relevant skills and benefit the UK launch industry
3. demonstrate collaboration between UK industry, UK academia and/or other UK research organisations in order to offer launch-related experience to young people with a view to build their skills and knowledge
4. demonstrate new approaches to developing launch skills and learning opportunities

1.2 Mandatory requirements

1. proposed projects must carry out all of their project work in the UK and to intend to exploit the results from or in the UK. The projects must be led by a UK-registered organisation, however international partners are accepted
2. proposals and the skills developed must be relevant to spaceflight/launch. Any other proposals will not be considered within this funding call
3. proposals must demonstrate a high probability of successfully meeting the aims of the opportunity and will be evaluated according to the criteria set out in the evaluation criteria in Annex D
4. all projects must demonstrate clear benefits to the UK space sector
5. proposals must include consideration of the practical and theoretical skills developed, with an emphasis on rocketry and launch skills. Proposals should also demonstrate incremental developments in both practical and theoretical rocketry and launch-related skills for the participants, including soft skills, through competition-based activities
6. proposals must demonstrate that the investment sought from the UK government represents clear value for the UK public, through measurable benefits to the UK economy
7. all proposed projects must demonstrate that they have an effective structure in place for managing the administration of the grant requested and demonstrate a sound approach to planning to achieve their programme aims on time and within budget
8. proposals must demonstrate collaboration between UK industry, UK academia and/or other UK research organisations
9. the project must offer high knowledge spill-over and advancement of new approaches to skills development
10. as part of the application for funding, applicants must review and accept the terms of the UK Space Agency’s published grant agreement. Only minor amendments will be considered. This will enable projects to start soon after evaluation and proposal selection has been completed

1.3 Value of Funding available

The UK Space Agency has made available a total of £760,000 (including VAT) grant funding for organisations establishing or further developing rocketry competition. Up to £250,000 (including VAT) grant funding is available per application or organisation for project deliverables in financial year 2024 to 2025.

Following the evaluation process, only the highest-ranking applications that sit within the Agency’s overarching funding and affordability envelope will be funded. All projects must complete their milestones in financial year 2024 to 2025, before 31 March 2025.

Financial checks will be undertaken, and all grant recipients must demonstrate value for money, sound financial and programme management procedures. Each project selected for grant funding will also be required to provide brief monthly updates on the project progress to the UK Space Agency using a template provided.

Grant payments will only be made following successful completion of applicable milestones and will be made to the prime organisation only. Milestone completion criteria will be agreed, linked to each milestone deliverable, with evidence required to demonstrate that each milestone has been completed successfully and costs have been expended in accordance with the principles set out in this document.

1.31 Eligible costs

The funding available may be used to cover the associated costs related to the design, set-up and running of the competition. This may include:

• design and/or production of necessary resource materials. For example, printing costs
• procurement of any specialist equipment needed to facilitate the competition
• any costs associated with site and staff safety and security including signage and health and safety costs
• staff costs - those needed to design, manage and facilitate the competition, calculated on a cost recovery basis only and broken down by pay costs and overheads separately. See section 13, ‘Finance Policy’, for further guidance
• contractor costs. For example, transport or cleaning services

Please refer to section 14, ‘Overheads’, for further details on overheads, eligible spend and claiming expenses.

2. Timetable

The table below outlines the expected timetable for this call for grant funding. The call will open on 15 August 2024 and close at 11:59pm BST on 11 September 2024. The UK Space Agency aims to notify all bidders of the results of their bid within 3 weeks of the deadline closing.

The grants must be completed, the key objectives must be achieved, and the funding should be spent by 31 March 2025. However, part of the funding benefits and non-funded components can continue after the end of March 2025.

Anticipated timetable for the key stages of the grant call process:

Stage	Date
Funding call opens	Thursday 15 August 2024
Deadline for submission of applicant questions	Wednesday 4 September 2024
Deadline for submission of Expression of Interest	N/A
Deadline for submission of proposals	11:59pm BST on Wednesday 11 September 2024
Notification of outcomes	Friday 11 October 2024
Grants to be signed by	Friday 1 November 2024
Grants completed	Monday 31 March 2025

Any questions about this funding opportunity should be submitted to the following email address [email protected].

The final deadline for any questions is Wednesday 4 September 2024. Questions submitted to any other UK Space Agency email address will not be considered. A live Q&A log will be maintained and hosted on the call web page alongside the call documentation to enable all potential applicants to have access to the answers provided. Please see the ‘Documents’ table below for information.

Annex	Title	Description
A-1 and A-2	Application form (mandatory) and Application form guidance	Application guidance included in Annex A-2. See Section 9 below for application process.
B	Budget template (mandatory)	Guidance in ‘Instructions’ tab of template.
C-1 and C-2	Overhead guidance and Overhead template	Please read the updated 2022 Overheads policy. Completion is mandatory if requesting over 20% overhead.
D	Evaluation criteria	Note the weightings for the criteria
E	Grant funding agreement (GFA)	Template for the GFA
F	Grant applicant checklist	A checklist to support the application completion.
G	FAQs	To be circulated as required.

3. Evaluation criteria

Applications that meet the mandatory criteria included below will be assessed by an independent advisory panel. Proposals will be assessed against a range of criteria, with criteria weighted to reflect their relative importance to the final score. A detailed copy of the scoring system and weighting can be found in Annex D. The criteria to be assessed includes:

Skills development (50% weighting in overall score)

Proposals must demonstrate how they will:

• provide opportunities for participants to apply the knowledge acquired during their studies
• develop participants’ practical engineering skills specific to spaceflight, such as rocketry and propulsion
• increase participants’ transferable skills desired by industry, such as problem solving, team work, decision making, and collaboration skills
• create opportunities for students to engage with industry partners, develop practical work experience, and encounter real-life situations
• focus on attracting participants from diverse range of socio-economic backgrounds

Strategic alignment (20% weighting in overall score)

Proposals must:

• consider the applicability of the skills initiative proposal to fill a spaceflight skills gap in the UK supply chain or bolster existing skills capabilities, for example the extent to which the skills developed may improve the UK’s spaceflight offering and the future UK workforce. Research on skills gaps identified can be found in UK Space Agency’s Space Sector Skills survey 2023
• demonstrate that their skills initiative has strong market potential and a clear development route through student experience to realise its full potential

Benefit to the UK (10% weighting in overall score) 

 Proposals must demonstrate:

• why the skills-focused initiative should be funded, the total additional investment and contract revenue into the UK space sector expected to be stimulated by UK Space Agency funding, and the potential benefits of the skills developed
• who will benefit from the acquired skills and the skilled workforce and how, and the timeliness and critical stages of the project
• that the investment sought from the UK government represents clear value for the UK public, through measurable benefits for the UK economy and unlock additional advantages to the UK Space Sector. Also, will need to show consideration of supporting UK-based employment and opportunities that will arise from your proposal
• how will the newly acquired skills improve the participants’ employability in the next 5 years, as well as how will the participants impact the UK workforce and the UK skills provision in the next 5 years
• how the investment sought from the UK government provides value to the UK public and the UK economy. In particular, please specify the new skills to be developed by the competition participants and what will be the additional long-term impact on the competition participants (for example, increased interest in STEM subjects). It is recommended to also include information on what skills gaps of the UK Spaceflight sector will be addressed and what will be the long-term impact on the UK Spaceflight market

Management and planning (20% weighting in overall score)

Proposals must clearly demonstrate:

• the project management approach that will be taken including how defined and proportionate the project management is
• the degree to which the project has a clear purpose and expected outputs
• the capability and track record of the team who will be delivering the project
• how the project will deliver value for money and what the project will deliver within the requested funding envelope

Assessors will provide scores for each question in the application. All applications are assessed on individual merit. The UK Space Agency will make the final decision regarding funding, using the panel’s recommendations and wider relevant legal, policy and financial considerations. The UK Space Agency will fund multiple eligible proposals as part of the competition fund, seeking to establish a balanced portfolio of projects across the space sector.

4. Exclusion criteria (grounds for automatic disqualification)

Applications will be automatically disqualified if they have any of the characteristics included below:

• projects that are not skills and/or education focused
• projects that don’t carry out all of their project work in the UK and don’t intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
• projects that are not led by a UK-registered organisation (international partners are accepted)
• projects that will not be delivered or achieve significant milestones within the 2024 to 2025 financial year
• projects out of the scope of the spaceflight theme
• the competition will not fund competitions which offer monetary prizes to participants
• under current restrictions, this competition will not fund any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any Russian or Belarusian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian or Belarusian source

5. Assessment of applications

After the deadline for application submission, valid applications will be sent for assessment by the selection panel. The panel will consist of independent UK Space Agency approved reviewers drawn from academia, industry, government or the Research Council review colleges.

Only applications that meet the following mandatory eligibility criteria and scope of the call will be sent for assessment:

• application documentation complete
• application signed and all mandatory check boxes completed
• alignment with the aims of the ‘purpose’ of this call for project proposals
• alignment with page counts and information requested in the application form as detailed in Annex A-1
• proposal made by a UK single lead organisation, acting alone or as the prime (the lead) of a project collaboration
• evidence of the requirements as set out in this call document have been met
• acceptance of the terms and conditions of UK Space Agency’s published grant agreement (Annex E)

The UK Space Agency reserves the right to declare a project proposal as out of scope or incomplete.

6. Application process and form

Please see Annex A-1 for the application form and A-2 for application form guidance.

We strongly advise that the grant applicant checklist in Annex F are read prior to submission.

7. Monitoring and evaluation

Monitoring and evaluation surveys will be periodically released by the UK Space Agency and projects will be expected to respond. This may include a requirement to respond following the close of the grant funded period. 

8. Milestone deliverables and outputs

When submitting your application please ensure you provide a high level project milestone delivery plan, as per the template provided in Annex A-1, section 9a.

Bidders must set out payment plans noting that:

• payments will be made in arrears on acceptance of progress reports, deliverables and final reporting. Payments are to be made once costs have been incurred
• should actual costs incurred be greater than the value of the milestone value, these costs will be borne by the grant recipient, unless the additional expenditure has been agreed with the UK Space Agency ahead of the costs being incurred and a grant change notice (GCN) executed
• payment of the grant will be made in the form of staged payments together with a final payment on successful completion of the project. To reduce administrative burden please ensure a proportionate number of milestone linked payments
• the first milestone should reflect a significant stage in the project and cannot be made on completion of the kick-off meeting as this is not eligible for a milestone payment value
• payment plans must be constructed to include and reflect major project stages and intermediate deliverables
• the work package structure should be outlined and clearly linked to the relevant milestone and deliverables, for example, through a GANNT chart or an equivalent project plan. Critical paths and dependencies should be outlined where possible

The milestone and work package plan will be captured using information in the Budget template (Annex B) and the Application form (Annex A-1) such as GANNT charts and further schedule details.

9. Reporting and meeting requirements

Following an award and completion of grant agreement formalities, projects will be expected to start as soon as possible, and no later than 3 weeks after grant signature. The UK Space Agency will assign a project coordinator to oversee the projects with the following methodology:

• the project coordinator on behalf of the UK Space Agency will initiate each project via a kick-off meeting (normally by teleconference) which should be accompanied by a short presentation on the project by the project team
• the grant recipient will provide short progress reports to the coordinator, and the schedule for these will be agreed at the project kick-off meeting and are normally at 4 or 6 weeks. A template will be made available at kick-off
• the grant recipient will schedule a mid-term progress meeting, as well as any with the project coordinator. Projects should include other technical review points (For example, preliminary or critical design reviews) to enable planning and obtaining of relevant expert input
• the grant recipient will provide milestone or deliverables within the proposal using the template provided in Annex A-1, section 9
• the grant recipient will provide reporting on the progress of the project to evidence the milestone or deliverable has been met. On acceptance from the project coordinator of the evidenced milestone or deliverable and supporting financial evidence, the grant recipient will be invited to provide an invoice detailing the spend against each budgetary category for that milestone or deliverable
• at the end of the project an IPR-free final report and an executive summary are to be provided to the UK Space Agency. The executive summary must not contain any confidential information, as this may be uploaded onto the UK Space Agency website. All other reports should be marked commercial in confidence where applicable.

10. Confidentiality

The procedure for handling and assessing the bids and notifications will be as follows:

• all proposals and notifications will be held in confidence by the UK Space Agency, except to be shared with evaluation panellists
• information relating to the proposals may also be shared with other UK government departments, agencies and arm’s length bodies
• summary information on all successful proposals who receive grant funding will be made public, including the summary of the proposal (from section 4 of the application form), the amount of grant funding awarded and the identities of organisations involved
• for those bids not recommended for funding, documentation will be retained by the UK Space Agency for reference. The proposals will not be visible to any others, and the names of any unsuccessful bidders will not be published
• all other documentation relating to bids selected for funding will remain confidential within the UK government

Any sensitive commercial information submitted as part of a proposal or subsequent submissions as part of the grant agreement will not be disclosed by us except in situations we consider necessary, in our absolute discretion, to comply with our legal obligations. These may be under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, Environmental Information Regulations 2004 or any other legal act, requirement or obligation. Where permitted by law, we will attempt to notify you of any such disclosure.

11. Organisation eligibility

There are a series of requirements for eligibility to receive grant funding:

• grant recipients must demonstrate the ability to effectively manage a project
• grant recipients must have a UK bank account and all grant payments will be made in UK sterling (as per grant funding agreement)
• all project members must have in place and provide evidence of appropriate anti-bribery and anti-corruption policies
• all project members must provide evidence of a process for declaring and managing conflicts of interest
• all project members must be able to provide evidence that they are GDPR compliant
• projects cannot work in areas that are in active conflict and any travel to overseas must comply with FCDO recommendations
• projects must pass due diligence checks on company viability (financial standing assessment, governance, conflicts of interest, technical expertise)
• formal teaming, or equivalent agreements between project partners must be in place within 60 days of grant signature
• projects must comply with the rules stated in this guidance document

12. Guidance for projects

Cost recovery

The funds from grant funding are on a cost recovery basis only. Grants are solely intended to cover the cost of delivering the agreed activity or goal. Any surplus funds not spent will be lost to the project unless there are alternative arrangements agreed.

Grantees cannot receive any funding from other grants or contracts to undertake the same activities.

Grant funding cannot be rolled over between financial years without explicit consent from the UK Space Agency.

13. Finance policy

All partners must use a separate, project-specific bank account or project accounting code for project funds to enable a clear audit trail.

Invoices

The UK Space Agency will only pay on actuals, so we expect that invoices may differ from forecasts. Should actual costs incurred be greater than the value of the milestone value, these costs will be borne by the grant recipient, unless the additional expenditure has been agreed with the UK Space Agency ahead of the costs being incurred and a GCN executed.

Staff costs

Staff costs must be calculated on a cost recovery basis only and broken down by pay costs and overheads separately.

Pay costs

Pay costs are calculated based on your PAYE records. They should include gross salary, employer National Insurance (NI) contributions and employer pension contributions. Pay costs must not include:

• any profit margins
• commercial charge-out rates
• allowances for bonuses and benefits in kind
• business development
• travel and subsistence

These pay rates will be subject to checks prior to grant signature by internal or external teams to ensure that day rates reflect actual costs. High payroll costs will be challenged and evidence (such as pay slips) must be provided to justify that the rate is on a cost recovery basis only.

When making grant claims against labour costs, actual costs claimed must be supported with timesheets of those individuals who have worked on the project.

In the budget breakdown, you are asked to provide a pay cost per day. Using actual gross monthly payroll costs, please assume 260 working days in the year, less annual leave and public holiday entitlements.

14. Overheads

We understand that organisations calculate overheads in different ways.

This section offers 3 options for overhead costs:

1. no overheads. You can select this option if you are not incurring or claiming grant for your overheads
2. the** 20% of labour costs** option allows you to claim 20% of your labour costs as overhead. This includes both direct and indirect overhead. Selecting this option allows us to review a successful grant application much faster as no further documentation is needed from you
3. the calculate overheads option asks you to complete calculations for claiming direct and indirect overheads. Any value claimed under this method will need to be reviewed by our project finance team if your application is successful. This is so we can assess the appropriateness of the overhead value you are claiming

Full overhead recovery or full absorption costing is not eligible.

Please note that once the overhead is calculated and approved it cannot be exceeded at any time throughout the project life.

For option 3 you must complete the overhead calculation spreadsheet and return with your grant submission.

The spreadsheet has 2 sections to fill:

• indirect (administration) overheads
• direct overheads

Once each section is completed the ‘total overheads’ will calculate your total amount, for review by the UK Space Agency.

Indirect (administration) overheads

Selecting the indirect (administration) overheads link will take you to a template you’ll need to complete to calculate these costs.

We class indirect overheads as those costs associated with back office functions (such as finance, HR, administration staff) whose primary function is to support the running of a business enterprise. Typically these costs are not directly related to a particular product or service production.

Indirect overhead costs are eligible for inclusion if they are incurred directly as a result of undertaking the project. They must be additional, which means over and above your business as usual costs. Requests for higher then 20% overheads that cannot clearly demonstrate the additional resource specifically due to the grant being undertaken will be rejected.

Where you have already identified specific ‘indirect’ individuals working directly on the project, these should have been captured in the labour costs section together with their attributable overhead.

We have provided cost categories in the template. The table below provides our definition for each category.

Cost category	Definition
Board and senior management	The proportion of salary costs (including employer’s NI) of the board and senior management of the company. This should be where they are engaged in strategic or administrative tasks. Do not include those working directly on the project or who are customer facing or operational.
Administrative staff	The salary costs (including employer’s NI) of main administrative staff, such as receptionists and central administration. Do not include administrative staff employed to support sales, marketing, account management and profit generating departments.
Human resources staff	The salary costs (including employer’s NI) of human resource staff.
Employed estates staff	The salary costs (including employer’s NI) of employed cleaning, maintenance, security and other estates staff.
Finance department staff	The salary costs (including employer’s NI) of main finance department staff, such as payroll, accounts payable and receivable. Do not include staff employed to support sales, marketing or account management activities.
Administrative support temporary and agency staff costs	This should include fees paid for the provision of temporary staff in administration or support services as listed above. Do not include any staff that are operational, such as marketing, sales, engineering, quality assurance, research and development and supply chain.
General office IT services	Include general IT services used across the whole organisation. Do not include IT costs where they relate purely to non-eligible staff or manufacturing, production or fee earning activities.
General postage	Include postage and courier expenses for general administration needs. Do not include product delivery or any postage costs incurred through promotion, sales, marketing customer relationship or accounts management.
Office supplies, printing and stationery costs	General office stationery and supplies such as paper, business cards, corporate stationery, office equipment for support or administrative staff listed above. Do not include specific costs associated with sales, marketing, product delivery, product literature or reports.
Security and safety costs	Include costs associated with site and staff safety and security including signage and health and safety costs.
Building maintenance: administration office facilities only	Include general repair and maintenance costs of administration facilities. Do not include repair and maintenance of manufacturing or production facilities and exceptional items such as new works or extensions which are not eligible for inclusion in this section.
Building rental: administration office facilities only	Where office space is leased include the rental costs. Do not include rental costs relating to manufacturing or production facilities and the cost of any deposits or penalties.
Contracted site services: administration office facilities only	Costs of contracted services relating to administration facilities such as cleaning of offices. Do not include contracted service costs related to manufacturing or production facilities.
Site property taxes: administration offices facilities only	Property taxes and charges relating to office space. Do not include manufacturing or production facility property taxes and charges.
Utilities: administration office facilities only	Electricity, gas, water, waste disposal, telecoms costs relating to administration office facilities.

The following is a step by step guide to help you fill in the relevant details to make your costs claim for indirect overhead.

Column A

Starting with your latest set of audited accounts please input your details against the relevant cost category in column A. If you are a new company or this information is unavailable, please use internal management accounts or forecast data.

Note that for the administration support staff costs section, the costs included here must be based upon PAYE (gross salary, NI, company pension contribution, life insurance). They should exclude discretionary package costs such as bonuses, awards, PRP and dividends. In addition please exclude any members working directly on the project who are customer facing or those engaged in operational or production areas.

Column B

In this column you should detail the proportion of the costs outlined in column A that represent core administration activity. You should follow the definitions and eligibility criteria outlined in the cost categories table above. You can use a percentage.

Column C

In column C please state what percentage of these costs you would assess as being additional and directly attributable administration activity to the project you are undertaking. By additional we mean over and above business as usual and specific to the grant.

Column D

Based upon the details you’ve given in the previous columns, column D will automatically calculate the costs you’ve stated as being attributable to this project.

Column E

In column E you will need to provide some description of the cost constituents.

Once you have filled in this data you will see a percentage calculation (column F). This calculates what you consider as being eligible indirect overhead costs for your project (D) as a proportion of the annual audited figures (A). To save you time we use this calculated percentage and apply it to the remainder cost categories you have completed.

Any administration costs that are ineligible in this section but which directly relate to the project (for example based on invoices), should be claimed as direct costs within other sections of the finance form.

Completion of the indirect overheads template will calculate an annual total which will be proportioned for the length of time you are working on the project. You will see a per annum, per month and a per project cost. The per project costs will form your total indirect overheads as a monetary value.

Once you have filled out your indirect overheads information choose the ‘return to the overheads section’ to take you back to the main overheads section. Here you will see a summary of your indirect overhead.

Direct overheads

Selecting the direct overheads link will take you to a template you’ll need to complete to calculate these costs.

We understand that in undertaking a project you may incur associated costs with those staff working directly on the project. We refer to these as direct overheads. Typical costs in this area could include direct staff provision of laptops (non-capital only), desks, office (such as occupancy, facilities and utilities) and IT infrastructure and systems. This section is provided in free format for you to list out such costs.

Direct overhead costs must be directly attributable to the project you are undertaking and should not represent a full recovery methodology inclusive of redundant, spare capacity time or cost.

You should detail the costs and include a description of each item together with the methodology or basis of apportionment used. This should include the calculations that support the claimable costs. This will help us to validate these costs if your project is successful. If your costs have been subject to an independent audit verification we may ask you to provide this report to support our financial eligibility reviews.

Please note that costs associated with laboratories or workshops should be included within the other costs section of the application form.

Once you have completed the direct overhead you should select ‘return to the overheads section’. You will return to the main overhead section where you will see a summary of your overhead claim for both direct and indirect overheads.

15. VAT rules

Grant funding is outside the scope of VAT so you cannot charge output VAT on top of your submitted costs. If you incur non-recoverable input VAT costs, you cannot pass this on to the UK Space Agency.

16. Ineligible expenditure

 The following costs are ineligible:

• payment that supports for lobbying or activity intended to influence or attempt to influence Parliament, government or political parties, or attempting to influence the awarding or renewal of contracts and grants, or attempting to influence legislative or regulatory action
• using grant funding to petition for additional funding
• input VAT reclaimable by the grant recipient from HMRC
• payments for activities of a political or exclusively religious nature
• goods or services that the grant recipient has a statutory duty to provide
• payments reimbursed or to be reimbursed by other public or private sector grants
• contributions in kind (ie, a contribution in goods or services, as opposed to money)
• depreciation, amortisation or impairment of fixed assets owned by the grant recipient
• the acquisition or improvement of fixed assets by the grant recipient (unless the grant is explicitly for capital use. This will be stipulated in the grant offer letter)
• interest payments (including service charge payments for finance leases)
• gifts to individuals
• entertaining (entertaining for this purpose means anything that would be a taxable benefit to the person being entertained, according to current UK tax regulations)
• statutory fines, criminal fines or penalties, or liabilities incurred before the issue of this funding agreement unless agreed in writing by the UK Space Agency
• employee paid benefits and bonuses
• alcohol

17. Travel and subsistence

The following outlines the guidelines for travel and subsistence costs. Value for money must always be considered. If for any reason the set limits cannot be adhered to (for example, to accommodate a reasonable adjustment), you must seek prior written approval from the UK Space Agency. No claims for alcohol will be accepted.

The UK Space Agency reserves the right to not settle claims which have breached these guidelines. All expenditure must be supported by actual, itemised receipts.

Limits:

• accommodation: £140 per night
• breakfast: £5
• lunch: £5
• dinner: £15

Travel:

• all travel claimed must be using economy rates
• tolls, ferry costs, parking and congestion charge: Receipted costs for ferries, and tolls bridges and roads unavoidably incurred during your business journey may be claimed. Reasonable parking charges may be claimed. Receipted congestion charges unavoidably incurred on your business journey may be claimed

18. The grant funding agreement (GFA)

The grant funding agreement template is included as a separate document. Applicants must sign up to the terms as set out in the grant funding agreement.

No material changes to the terms will be considered. Minor changes may be considered if an applicant can demonstrate that agreeing to the provision within the grant funding agreement would result in the applicant breaching its statutory or regulatory obligations. Grant applicants wishing to propose changes should not make changes directly to templates, but engage with the call lead as early as possible in the process and advice will be provided.

19. Grant Recipient Code of Conduct

All organisations in receipt of grant funding must abide by the UK government’s Code of Conduct for Recipients of Government General Grants.

20. Annual audit of project costs (For grant awards of £250,000 and over only)

All projects will be subject to an external annual audit to ensure that costs claimed from the grant funding have been expensed on agreed project related expenditure and comply to UK Space Agency grant funding policies (for example, match funding). The auditor will be appointed by the UK Space Agency. All subcontractors and partners must provide access to project relevant expenditure. Therefore, grant recipients must maintain, and be able to provide upon request, any supporting evidenced as deemed necessary, such as:

• timesheets (prime and, where applicable, partners)
• staff costs (contractors)
• all receipts (including travel and subsistence)
• all partner and subcontractor invoices
• breakdown of overhead costs
• breakdown of capital usage (for example, licence and data costs)

The UK Space Agency reserves the right to conduct ad-hoc audits throughout the life of the project.

21. Due diligence

The UK Space Agency will carry out due diligence on grant applications as required using internal and, where necessary, external subject matter experts. The scope and degree of due diligence will be determined by the value, nature and complexity of the grant scheme. All applications will be subject to basic checks such as credit reports and Companies House checks. 

Additional pre-award due diligence may include, but is not limited to:

• technical assessment of the proposed project: including technical viability and sustainability
• financial assessment: organisation financial standing/health, assessment of project costs, aid intensity values and match funding contributions
• economic impact/VFM assessment
• national security due diligence checks
• commercial: viability and/or commercial sustainability of the proposed solution, market position, demand and/or interest in technology, terms of the grant funding agreement
• programmatic: alignment to aims and objectives of the programme, programme plan which demonstrates the project can be delivered within the funding period and the critical path, risks and issues, details on project partners and/or subcontractors

Post-award due diligence may include, but if not limited to:

• technical assessment of milestone deliverables against acceptance criteria to allow milestone payments to be released
• financial: assessment of expenditure for each milestone payment and reporting on planned costs, follow up review of financial standing or health if it is a multi-year project
• commercial: change management including any variations to time, cost, scope, or GFA terms, review of milestone deliverables as required
• programmatic: project progress and impacts of any delays, risk assessment and mitigation activity
• end of project review: Has the technical and economic value been realised? Lessons learned and continuous improvement
• national security due diligence
• grants of £250,000 and over only: UK Space Agency commissioned and funded financial audit of grant recipient, and if applicable project partner, costs

Grant applicants who opt to work with project partners, companies involved in delivery of the project under a flow down agreement rather than a subcontractor, will assume all responsibility for partner due diligence.

Applicants will need to demonstrate they have carried out a sufficient level of due diligence with regard to their proposed project partners and subcontractors. Applicants will need to demonstrate they have carried out minimum checks at proposal stage, which may require further scrutiny if the proposal is to be funded.

To meet this requirement, applicants can provide evidence of due diligence carried out supported by the resulting information or submit a partner reasonable assurance statement. The evidence should be consistent with the checks that we would conduct on our grant recipients, for examples, financial standing, technical ability and scrutiny of the breakdown of costs. Any costs associated with project partner due diligence is considered a bidding cost and is to be borne by the applicant.

Applicants must provide evidence that they, and project partners have in place of appropriate anti-bribery and anti-corruption internal policies, and a process for declaring and managing conflicts of interest.

22. Subsidy control

The UK Space Agency does not expect the funding to be provided via this competition to be classed as a subsidy or state aid under the Subsidy Control Act 2022 or state aid regulations. However, applicants should assure themselves of their position prior to application or acceptance of funding.

More information can be found by reading the guidance for potential beneficiaries of subsidies.