Guidance

Announcement of Opportunity: 2026 Rosalind Franklin Instrument Science Preparation Support Call

Published 9 June 2026

1. Scope of Call

Exploration covers the regions where humans do, or may in the near future, live and work, namely low Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars. The UK has made a major investment into ESA’s Exploration Programme, and the UK Space Agency National Exploration programme seeks to maximise the value of our investment through ESA and ensure that the UK research community is best placed to deliver world‑class science across current and future human and robotic exploration activities.

In 2025, the UK Space Agency conducted a review of Mars Science delivery to ensure that the UK’s investment into Mars Science can maximise UK scientific return from the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin Mars rover mission and ensure value for money. In line with the ExoMars Delivery Plan, this funding call will focus only on postdoctoral research associates to work on critical science and technical preparation for the 3 named UK instrument contributions on the mission: Enfys, PanCam and RLS.

These critical science preparation activities could include:

• Data analysis tools – Science driven optimisation, testing and validation of the baseline instrument data processing algorithms and software tools which will be used for Enfys, PanCam and RLS scientific analysis
• Modelling and simulation of science outputs from instruments – Development, testing, optimisation and validation of forward models to support instrument operations during the early‑phase science planning and interpretation
• Laboratory, analogue or reference studies – generation of analogue datasets, spectral libraries, environmental models or other reference materials to support interpretation of expected instrument data
• Develop, test and document protocols and procedures for science driven surface operations – Develop measurement sequences and strategies, and analysis protocols and procedures to ensure efficient use of mission resources and maximise the science return from Enfys, PanCam and RLS

The UK Space Agency reserves the right to reject proposals without reference to panel review if they do not fit the call remit, do not meet STFC and UK Space Agency criteria, or do not contain all the required information and documents. Prospective applicants may discuss with the Agency prior to submission if they are uncertain about whether their proposal fits this call.

Guidance on working with Russia

We will not fund any new collaborative projects with Russia.

This includes any project with a Russian dimension e.g. projects building on existing work with Russian collaborators (as Co-Is, project partners, lab facilities, or co-authors) or which use Russian data sources (where the data cannot be sourced through other means). If you require any further clarity on this, please contact UKSA.SpaceExploration@dsit.gov.uk.

The UK Space Agency follow policy set by the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology in accordance with guidance from the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO).

As of March 2022, DSIT have set a firm policy on Russian collaboration, which can be found here.

2. Award Duration and start date

Projects in this call must start no earlier than 1 April 2027, and must end no later than 31 March 2030. Maximum duration of a grant is therefore 36 months. If a grant starts later than 1 April 2027, less than 36 months will be funded, as no firm commitment will be made by the UK Space Agency to fund any work as part of a project in this call beyond 31 March 2030.

3. Award value

All costings should be at current prices, with no allowance for inflation. An allowance for inflation may be included if a grant is awarded.

• Eligible costs
• Funding will be awarded at 80% of the full economic costs (fEC) requested
• There is no limit for how much overall funding can be applied for, but proposals will be assessed on value for money
• Up to £10,000 over 4 publications can be charged to the grant for publishing costs

Reasonable costs will be permitted, but it should be noted that all costs must be justified and that the appropriateness and justification of sums requested will form part of the assessment criteria.

4. UK Space Agency Criteria

The UK Space Agency reserves the right to reject proposals without reference to panel review if they do not fit the call remit or STFC and UK Space Agency criteria or do not contain all the required information. Prospective applicants may discuss with the Agency prior to submission if they are uncertain about whether their proposal fits this call.

• Full proposals will only be considered if applicants have submitted a proposal overview by the deadline and have been invited to submit a full proposal
• This grant scheme complies with the Subsidy Control Act 2022 and awards are offered on the basis organisations are pursuing fundamental research activities that are non-economic in nature and therefore out of scope of Subsidy Control. Proposals involving economic activity (i.e. putting goods or services onto a market) will not be supported in this funding call
• Protection of any Intellectual Property (IP) rights on the project will remain the responsibility of the project participants
• All proposals must be led by organisations based in the United Kingdom. International partners are permitted but funding from this grant cannot be used to fund any researchers based outside the UK
• The proposal will be reviewed and assessed as it is upon receipt by the deadline indicated in this call text. There will not be an opportunity to amend the proposal after this date
• Applicants may submit up to 2 applications. Only 1 of the applications can be as the principal investigator
• Successful projects agree to regular project meeting between the grant holder and the UK Space Agency. At minimum this will be at the beginning, middle and end of the grant

5. STFC Criteria

Funding is provided by the UK Space Agency but administered by UKRI-STFC. Awards will therefore be made in line with standard UKRI-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 rules prior to application.

More information can be found here:

• Meeting terms and conditions for funding
• Guidance for applicants

6. Grant payment 

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

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, but please note that the UK Space Agency remains the funder.

7. Call timeline*

Dates are in 2026 unless specified otherwise.

AO opening	9 June
Outline proposal due	26 June
Outline proposal outcome	10 July
AO closing	21 August
Peer reviews collected	September
Rebuttal commissioned	October
Rebuttal due	End October
Panel meeting	November
Outcome	End November
Grants to start	No earlier than 1 April 2027 with a maximum duration of 36 months
Grants to end	Funding will not be given past 31 March 2030

*These dates are subject to change

8. 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 Grant Recipient shall ensure that delivery of the Funded Activities does not put the Authority in breach of its domestic obligations under the Subsidy Control Act or put the UK in breach of its international obligations in respect of subsidies
• The UK Space Agency 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, strategically and/or legally 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
• 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
• The Grant Recipient shall agree to all reasonable peer review requests issued by the UK Space Agency from time to time for the duration of the grant

9. Monitoring, evaluation, and Reporting

During the grant period, the UK Space Agency may from time-to-time request written and/or oral reports detailing the activity carried out within the scope of the grant. Regular progress meetings will be held between the grant holder and the UK Space Agency to monitor and evaluate progress for the length of the grant.

10. How to apply

Please read all of the guidance carefully. Contact the UK Space Agency (UKSA.SpaceExploration@dsit.gov.uk) if you have any questions regarding your application. 

To ensure all proposals are programmatically viable, the call will include a 2-stage application process.

Stage 1 – Outline Proposal

Send the Outline Proposal Template to UKSA.SpaceExploration@dsit.gov.uk by 26 June at 4pm, with file name [PISurname]_RFM_26_OutlineProposal

At the first stage, applicants submit an outline of their proposal. The outline proposal should include the following points:

• A brief outline of the proposed project
• A brief outline of the necessity of the project for mission success
• A brief outline of how the project would fit within the existing instrument parameters
• How the proposal differs from the science preparation that is already being done through existing instrument funding
• A brief outline of the expected results/outcomes

The outline proposal document will be assessed by members of the three instruments’ teams, as well as civil servants from the Office of the Chief Engineer (OCE) and the UK Space Agency Exploration team. There will be a pass/fail result. A proposal may fail if it is deemed not to be viable within the mission/instrument timeline or existing instrument parameters and capabilities. Only outlines which are deemed viable will progress to full application. We therefore encourage candidates to work closely with the instrument teams to ensure the proposed projects fit within mission constraints and deliver maximum value for instruments. Brief feedback will be provided upon request.

Stage 2 - Full Proposal

If you have been invited to submit a full proposal, please send the full proposal to UKSA.SpaceExploration@dsit.gov.uk by Friday 21 August at 4pm.

Your full proposal includes the application form, Case for support and Further documentation (saved as separate documents, not merged):

Application form

File name [PISurname]_RFM_26_Application form

• Filled out full application template

Case for Support

File name [PISurname]_RFM_26_Caseforsupport

No more than 6 pages (excluding references), including diagrams and tables (minimum font size 12-point Arial, minimum 1.5 cm margins all round) and include the following headings and information:

• Title
• Participating researchers
• Description of the Project
• Objectives
• Academic Beneficiaries
• Management plan: Proposed management of both the project and resources, identifying the training and career development opportunities for personnel working on the project
• The relationship to any earlier or current work of the applicant(s) and/or collaborating organisation(s) and any relevant work elsewhere
• Impact and outreach statement/plan
• Justification of Resources Requested

Further Documentation

File name [PISurname]_RFM_26_Further documentation

• CV for the PI (Max 2 sides of A4)
• Publication list of the PI
• Summary of the costs requested (your Institution’s research office can help with this), clearly divided into Full economic costing fund headings. Please also ensure any Travel & Subsistence and other costs are clearly set out
• Current funding list of the PI (including title, funder, value, duration and level of applicant’s time spent on the project. If the title is not self-explanatory include a sentence to explain what the project is about)
• Data management plan (max 2 sides A4)

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.

11. Review Process

Once the full proposal has been received, UK Space Agency will seek up to 3 reviews from UK and international experts to review your Case for Support for science and technical excellence. You will then have 2 weeks to respond with a 1-page rebuttal to the reviews, which will be used by the panel along with the reviews to assess the proposal.

The panel, made up of UK Space Agency experts and academic reviewers, will consider the proposals against all Assessment criteria (see the next section). The panel will recommend a final assessment and ranking of proposals to the UK Space Agency. The panel and UK Space Agency, in finalising the awards to be made, may take account of the distribution of awards in terms of instrument, area of research and institution.

There is no course for appeal, but feedback can be provided upon request within three months of being notified of the panel’s decision. Incomplete or late applications and altered templates will not be considered.

Please note it may take up to 6 months for the UK Space Agency to complete the evaluation process.

12. Assessment Criteria

In considering the full proposal, reviewers will use the following criteria:

Science and technical excellence of the proposal (40%)

• The quality of the science proposed
• To what extent will the research advance scientific knowledge?
• How likely are they to deliver the stated scientific goals of the proposal?
• Does the researcher employ a variety of techniques or address a number of objectives?
• Is the proposal innovative, employing novel techniques or new methods of analysis and interpretation?

Relevance, necessity and timeliness to Enfys, PanCam and RLS science preparation (35%)

• Relevance to the outlined science aims of the Enfys, PanCam and RLS instruments
• Criticality of the proposal to the science preparation of the Enfys, PanCam and RLS instruments
• Extent to which the proposal would improve science outcomes for the Enfys, PanCam and RLS instruments
• Does this proposal fit within the given timeframe of the call?
• Are the outputs likely to be achievable within the timeframe proposed?
• What consequences could you or do you foresee if this proposal is not selected?

Value for money (10%)

• Requested costs are justified, appropriate, and reasonable.
• Value of any leveraged funding (including in-kind and financial)

Research Environment and Team membership (10%)

• Suitability of the proposed research team to successfully undertake the work covered by this proposal

• Do the team members listed show within their CVs relevant experience to the project activities described

• the degree to which a PDRA would enhance the project.

Impact and outreach plan (5%)

• Use of the research and activities to inspire others(outside of existing impact and outreach avenues for these instruments)
• Plans to communicate the results of the project (outside of existing impact and outreach avenues for these instruments)

13. Due Diligence

If your proposal is recommended for funding, the UK Space Agency will conduct due diligence checks ahead of issuing your offer letter to confirm you are eligible to receive funding and have sufficient resources to ensure a project is successful. You can find out about the checks we conduct on our grants page here. We expect lead organisations to conduct due diligence on project partners and may ask to see confirmation this has been completed.

14. Confidentiality 

Completed applications must be submitted to the UK Space Agency at the email address specified in the guidance documentation. 

The UK Space Agency is subject to the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. It may therefore become necessary for UK Space Agency to release information in order to comply with its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Once the call closing date has passed, electronic copies of all eligible documents will be distributed to the independent assessment panel members. UK Space Agency confidentiality rules will apply. 

For those bids not recommended for funding, documentation will be retained by the UK Space Agency for reference in accordance with DSIT retention policy. The proposals will not be visible to any others, and the names of any unsuccessful applicants will not be published.

Information submitted for those projects selected for funding will be retained by UK Space Agency but remain confidential.

Summary information about the proposals selected for funding may be published on the UK Space Agency website and/or UK Space Agency social media accounts.

The contact details you provide will only be used for the purposes of this funding call. The UK Space Agency will not share your information with anyone else.

The UK Space Agency complies with the GDPR and its Privacy Notice can be found here.

The UK Space Agency will monitor the funded project through scheduled review meetings. The Agency requests that any confidential information is clearly marked Commercial in Confidence.