Notice

Announcement of Opportunity 2023 SciSupport: Call for Proposals

Updated 23 March 2023

This notice was withdrawn on 13 June 2023

This call closed on 18 April 2023.

Funding type: Research, innovation, and development

Who can apply: Academics working at UK Research organisations who have already been selected by ESA for access to microgravity of space environments facilities.

Total fund: £1,000,000 (indicative)

Award range: up to £200,000

Deadline: 18 April 2023, 16:00

1. Scope of call

The purpose of this AO is to support UK based researchers who have already secured facility access to microgravity and space environments research platforms through the ESA SciSpacE Programmes Research Announcements.

The UK Space Agency is making funding available to support the preparation of experiments and this scheme is open to academics from the UK or overseas, working at UK Research Organisations, who have already been selected by ESA for access to microgravity or space environments facilities.

The UK Space Agency only welcomes proposals for resources and related costs to support experiment preparation and implementation. This could take the form of (but are not limited to):

• support for academics including promising early career researchers, Post Doctorate Research Assistants and lead academics;
• support for PhD students (please contact us for further details);
• travel costs to facilitate data collection or experiment implementation;
• equipment costs (to support experiment preparation).

Exploitation of experiment data is not within the scope of this call and is generally within the remit of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

2. Aims and objectives

The aim of the call is to continue to develop the UK’s microgravity community and their research outcomes, and to maximise the return on the UK’s investment in Microgravity Facilities, through the ESA Exploration programmes.

This call will fund UK based academic researchers who have already secured facility access to microgravity and space environments research platforms through the ESA SciSpace Programme, of which the UK is a member state.

This call aims to provide UK national support to selected experiments in preparation and execution. Prioritisation will be given to experiments scheduled to be executed in 2023 - 2025 (with an understanding that delays can occur).

3. Timetable

AO published	6 March 2023
AO closes	18 April 2023, 16:00
Panel meeting	May 2023
AO results announced	May 2023
Grants to start	1 June 2023*

*Applications with later start dates must be no later than 1 September 2023.

4. Award value

This funding is from the UK Space Agency, though it is administered through STFC on behalf of the UK Space Agency. Awards will be made in line with standard STFC criteria, in accordance with their financial rules (including the standard FEC application and for the length of the grant – please make sure you and your institution are fully aware of these before application.

Award funding requests should be in line with studentship or PDRA/researcher salary costs for standard UKRI grants or justified grant related costs.

Reasonable costs will be permitted, but it should be noted that all costs must be justified and of a reasonable length related to the experiment. The appropriateness and justification of sums requested will form part of the assessment criteria.

The UK Space Agency acknowledges the breadth and scope of microgravity research and wishes to use this allocated funding in the most effective way possible. The UK Space Agency therefore reserves the right to negotiate changes to proposed funding requests on a case-by-case basis.

5. Award length

The maximum funded award length is three years (unless awarded for PhD stipend) with an anticipated start date of no earlier than 1 June 2023. If your award starts later than June 2023, the UK Space Agency cannot guarantee funding after this date. Applications are expected to justify the length of the grant against the experiment timeline and execution.

6. Grant terms and conditions

All awards will be subject to UKRI standard grant terms and conditions, with the addition of the following specific clauses from the UK Space Agency as grant funder:

The UK Space Agency reserves the right to cancel, re-profile or reduce the award subject to announcements from government Comprehensive Spending Reviews (CSR) or other financial constraints. The current CSR runs to the end of financial year 23/24.

The UK Space Agency also reserves the right to cancel or reduce the award in the event of the project being cancelled or descoped.

The UK Space Agency reserves the right to terminate the grant within a 6-month notice period should it be deemed programmatically or strategically advisable to do so.

The Grant holder agrees that as a condition of receiving any Funds they shall provide the UK Space Agency with all information, reports, statistics, study results and data reasonably requested by the UK Space Agency to track and assess progress and performance of the Project.

In conjunction with the UK Space Agency, the Grant Recipient shall monitor the delivery and success of work packages it has allocated Funds to throughout the Grant Period to ensure that the aims and objectives of the work package are being met and that this agreement is being adhered to.

The Grant Recipient shall not publish any material referring to the Funds or this agreement without the prior written agreement of the UK Space Agency.

The Grant Recipient shall acknowledge the role of the UK Space Agency as grant funder in any materials that refer to the Project and in any written or spoken public presentations about the Project as it relates to this agreement. Such acknowledgements (where appropriate and with UK Space Agency’s written consent shall include the UK Space Agency’s name and logo (or any future name or logo adopted by the Grant Funder).

In using the UK Space Agency’s name and logo, the Grant Recipient shall comply with all reasonable branding guidelines issued by the UK Space Agency from time to time.

Applicants should note that they will be expected to submit their outcomes and outputs through ResearchFish in line with UKRI guidance. Non-compliance will lead to sanctions which could include the immediate freezing of funding and/or non-selection for future funding calls.

If successful, the lead applicant will be asked to submit a full JeS application for formal processing within 2-months of being notified of their success. Failure to do so will result in the withdrawal of the initial application and funding.

7. Grant payment

Payments will be made to the lead research organisation quarterly and the first payment will be made once the formal offer letter has been accepted by the research organisation.

The UK Space Agency reserves the right to adjust the profile of the funding over the length of the grant at their discretion with the support of STFC.

The final payment will be made after the submission of the final reconciliation report at the end of the grant. These processes are administered by STFC, please note that the UK Space Agency remains the funder.

https://www.ukri.org/apply-for-funding/manage-your-funding-award/receiving-your-funding-award/

8. Evaluation Criteria and Assessment of Applications

8.1 Assessment criteria

In considering the proposal, the panel will use the following criteria and scoring mechanism:

Science excellence of the selected experiment (25%) This score will be based on the scores awarded by the call that has already awarded the facility access.

Relevance to and priority within the UK Space Agency Exploration programme (10%) Contributions of the selected experiment and it’s expected outcomes to UK science and exploration activities as related to the National Space Strategy1 and the global exploration endeavour outlined in the Global Exploration Roadmap2.

Necessity, justification, and timeliness of requested resources (25%) Criticality of the proposal to the success of the selected experiment. Criticality and appropriateness of the length and timing of the grant as related to the expected experiment timeline and planned execution date.

Value for Money (25%) Requested costs are appropriate and reasonable. Value of any leveraged funding (including in-kind and financial).

Team membership (10%) Suitability of the proposed research team to successfully undertake the work covered by this proposal. Appropriateness of team membership and the lead applicants relevant research record.

Impact and outreach plan (5%) Use of the research and activities to inspire others. Plans to communicate the results of your selected experiment.

8.2 Assessment

The grant scheme scope is limited to academics who have already secured facility access through a peer reviewed scheme (ESA research announcement calls). As such no peer review process for the overall experiment will be undertaken. Applications will be reviewed for remit and where appropriate discussed with UKRI to assess remit and priorities and ensure funding is appropriately allocated.

The review panel will be made up of programmatic and technical representatives from the UK Space Agency and independent academic assessors across a broad range of science disciplines who will consider all proposals against the evaluation criteria outlined above. The panel will make a final assessment and rank proposals. The panel, in finalising the awards to be made, may take account of the distribution of awards in terms of subject, type of award, and institution.

9. Application Guidance

Applicants should note the following:

Within the full application, applicants should consider and remember that this application is to the UK Space Agency for funding to support experiment preparation and execution, and this should be focus of the submission. It is distinct from the overall experiment proposal, but reference should be made to how this proposal sits in context both of facility access, and plans for exploitation of the experiment data, including how this is expected to be funded

All the information boxes on the JeS form must be filled in, including Objectives, Summary and Academic Beneficiaries. The Summary should be suitable for a lay audience as it may be used by the Agency in press releases or Agency news stories.

Any additional documentation that are included in the pdf submission, but are not stated in the ‘How to Apply’ section below, will not be considered. It will not be seen by reviewers or the review panel and will not count towards the proposal.

If any part of the proposal extends over the stated page limit, the additional pages will be removed and not considered as part of the proposal.

The JeS format is a generic one and therefore does not reflect specific formats UKRI use for studentships or Fellowships – if you have any questions about the application, please contact SpaceExploration@ukspaceagency.gov.uk as early in the application process as possible.

UKSA encourages the development of skills in public communication and will provide funding to support the training of members of the research team. Provision for training in public communication should be included as other costs under the directly incurred heading.

10. How to Apply

Please read all this call guidance carefully. Contact the UK Space Agency (SpaceExploration@ukspaceagency.gov.uk) if you have any questions on any aspect.

NOTE: The UK Space Agency Grant funding will be administered through STFC.

You will need to create, but not submit, an application on the Je-S system through the following steps:

1.Please fill in a Je-S form via https://je-s.rcuk.ac.uk/ for a STFC:

• Standard Proposal as the document type
• Standard as the scheme
• Urgency Grants – Open Call as the Call/Type/Mode

and produce a .pdf of the completed form.  To do this, follow document actions –> print document –> select print format as ‘pdf’ –> download the print.

2.Send this .pdf file, along with the relevant annexes (as listed below as a single PDF document is preferred), to SpaceExploration@ukspaceagency.gov.uk, to arrive before the closing date.

For full details in using the JeS application system, please refer to the JeS Handbook3

All annexes MUST be:
* A4 paper size with minimum of 2cm margins * Font size of no smaller than 11pt * Saved and sent as PDF documents

Annexes should include:

1. A PDF of the unsubmitted JeS form. Please complete all standard sections

2. A Case for Support that complements the JeS form, of no more than 6 sides of A4, to include: * Project plan * Monitoring of progress and management plan * Justification of all resources requested * Impact and Outreach Plan

3. A letter from ESA confirming successful award of access to facilities.

4. The application submitted to ESA for facility access and ESA peer reviews and related review responses.

5. Details of current funding

6. Academic CVs of named staff in the proposal (2 sides of A4 per named academic). * If research staff are yet to be employed, please include a short job specification instead.

7. Letters of support (if relevant to the success of the proposed experiment)

Please note: it is the responsibility of the proposal Principal Investigator to clear their submission with the relevant finance and research offices of their institution. Such clearance must be obtained prior to submission. We welcome contact from Institutions research offices and are happy to discuss UKSA calls and funding at any time.

Applications must be received no later than no later than 16:00 – 18th April 2023.  Applications received after this will not be considered.

11. Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting

All grants awarded will require the awardee to report on impacts and outcomes annually through the ResearchFish process4 as per UKRI grant terms and conditions, both during the grant period and for 5 years afterwards.

In addition, during the grant period, quarterly written reports will be required to be provided to the UK Space Agency detailing the activity carried out within the scope of the grant. Regular progress meetings will also be held between the grant holder and the UK Space Agency to monitor and evaluate progress for the length of the grant.

The UK Space Agency Exploration Team remains available to support project teams at any point and expects the Grant Holder to make us aware of any delays, barriers, or issues as early as possible.

12. Confidentiality

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

13. Contact

Any questions concerning this call should be directed to:

The UK Space Agency Exploration Science Team - SpaceExploration@ukspaceagency.gov.uk