Notice

Wales Space Cluster Catalyst Fund

Published 2 October 2025

1. Introduction

The UK Space Agency, in partnership with Space Wales & The Welsh Government, invites proposals for grant funding to grow the space sector in Wales and support with the delivery of Wales’ Space Strategy.

Wales is home to world-class space businesses, cutting-edge research institutions, and a thriving innovation ecosystem spread across the country. Through this Devolved Administrations funding call, the UK Space Agency aims to strengthen these capabilities by supporting short-term, impactful projects that align with the strategic goals of the Welsh space sector.

This funding opportunity is designed to support the delivery of Wales: A Sustainable Space Nation, Wales’ space strategy published in 2022, and to help achieve its strategic ambitions and drive innovation and growth across the space sector in Wales.

This funding call will also promote collaboration across the Welsh space ecosystem, supporting a diverse range of project themes and encouraging partnerships between academia, industry, and government.

This is an open funding call for organisations based in Wales to support the delivery of Wales’ Space Strategy, for projects that support the growth of the Welsh space sector, linked to one of the following four key strategy areas:

1. Upstream Manufacturing, e.g. Materials Science
2. Midstream Operations, e.g. Space Observation, Space Domain Awareness, Resilience
3. Downstream Applications, e.g Earth Observation, Connectivity
4. Skills development

In your application form, you should set out how your proposal will contribute towards supporting at least one of these areas.

We welcome innovative proposals that will contribute to making Wales a globally recognised, sustainable space nation, and will grow the UK space sector. Proposals should fit into one of the following funding streams:

1.1 Tier 1 - Launchpad Cymru:

• Funding range: £10,000 – £30,000
• Suitable for pilot projects, scoping studies, or early-stage collaboration efforts
• Target: 3–5 projects

1.2 Tier 2 - Orbit Cymru:

• Funding range: £35,000 – £60,000
• Suitable for more mature collaborations or projects with strong potential for cluster development and investment attraction
• Target: 2–3 projects

Applications are invited before the deadline of 23:59 on 24 October 2025.

2. Call Objectives, Scope and Key Information

Through the Wales Space Cluster Catalyst Fund, the UK Space Agency intends to award a total of £247,000 of grant funding. Projects will begin from week commencing 3 November 2025 and be completed by 31 March 2026.

The government set out an ambition in the National Space Strategy to build one of the most innovative and attractive space economies in the world, which includes building a whole-UK space ecosystem that is connected by world-class space clusters. The UK Government’s Industrial Strategy and Advanced Manufacturing Sector Plan highlighted space as one of the frontier sectors and set the ambition to become a leading industrialised European exporter by 2030.

The UK Space Agency is providing dedicated funding to Space Wales, the space cluster for Wales, through the Devolved Administrations Programme, specifically to help deliver on the ambitions outlined in Wales: A Sustainable Space Nation - Wales’ space strategy published in 2022. This marks a continued commitment to working alongside the UK’s Devolved Administrations and ensuring that local strengths are fully harnessed to drive national impact.

Wales is home to a fast-growing and space sector, with strengths spanning satellite technology, launch operational support, earth observation, microgravity R&D, optics & photonics, and environmental sustainability. This funding call aims to support short-duration projects that build on those strengths, enabling organisations in Wales to play a leading role in advancing the Welsh Space Strategy while contributing to the broader UK space ecosystem.

This funding call supports the delivery of Wales: A Sustainable Space Nation by enabling a broad range of space-related organisations across Wales to deliver targeted, high-impact projects. Funding is divided into two strands to support a diverse ecosystem of applicants — from early-stage innovators to established cluster partners.

All projects will begin from week commencing 3 November 2025 and conclude by 31 March 2026. Match funding may be required depending on the nature of the project and the organisation applying for funding, please consult the guidance below and contact localgrowth@ukspaceagency.gov.uk should you have any questions.

Applicants should demonstrate:

• Clear alignment with Wales: A Sustainable Space Nation
• Measurable outcomes and benefits
• Collaborative approaches across academia, industry, or local authorities
• How this project strengthens the wider Wales Space Ecosystem

Important Information for Applicants includes:

• Awarded projects will start from November 2025 and must have fully completed by March 2026

• This call will close at 23:59 on 24 October 2025 – no extensions are permitted and late applications will not be accepted

• Grant funding per project is expected to range from £10,000 to £60,000, depending on the tier being applied to. In exceptional circumstances, UK Space Agency reserve the right to adjust the value or duration of the grant funding available

• This grant scheme complies with the Subsidy Control Act 2022 and awards are made under the Streamlined Route for Research, Development and Innovation. Companies applying for this funding will need to demonstrate they meet eligibility requirements for this scheme, including not having received previous project funding in excess of the cumulation caps within the scheme (£3 million). Further information on eligibility requirements is listed in Annex 1 (Subsidy Control)

• Terms and conditions set out in the Grant Funding Agreement (GFA) will govern the grant awards with no scope to make material changes, including to liability levels.

• Applications will be assessed against the assessment criteria outlined in the Assessment of Applications section of this document

• Questions or clarifications can be directed to enquiries@spacewales.co,uk. The UK Space Agency will not respond to questions asking for applications to be reviewed ahead of the submission deadline

• The UK Space Agency reserves the right to reject proposals if they are outside the call remit, do not contain all of the required information or do not provide sufficient information for assessment

• Protection of any Intellectual Property (IP) rights on the project will remain the responsibility of the project participants. The UK Space Agency does not seek any ownership of project IP. Future ownership of any potential IPR should be dealt with as part of any Collaboration Agreement

• All proposals must be led by organisations based in the United Kingdom

3. Call and Delivery Timeline

The following schedule sets out the indicative timing of processes for this call. Please note that each deadline may be subject to change in the event of operational constraints.

• Call Opens: 30 September 2025
• Call Closes: 24 October 2025
• Successful Applicants notified: 31 October 2025
• Project Kick-off: w/c 3 November 2025 Projects Conclude: March 2026

4. Subsidy Control: Research Organisations, Public & Third Sector

The UK Space Agency supports organisations to invest in research, development and innovation. The support we provide is consistent with the UK’s international obligations and commitments to Subsidy Control. Please see this page for further information about the UK Space Agency’s obligations under the Subsidy Control Act 2022. To ensure this competition provides funding in line with obligations and commitments, the intervention rates detailed in section 4.2 shall apply, unless:

• The applicant seeks to claim exemption from having to make a contribution under the Minimal Financial Assistance Allowance (previously known as de-minimis under State Aid and Small Amounts of Financial Assistance under Trade and Co-operation Agreement) rules
• The applicant is a research or public sector organisation or charity pursuing non-economic activity

When referring to research organisations, the UK Space Agency uses the definition from the Framework for State Aid for Research and Development and Innovation which states:

research and knowledge dissemination organisation’ or ‘research organisation’ means an entity (such as universities or research institutes, technology transfer agencies, innovation intermediaries, research-oriented physical or virtual collaborative entities), irrespective of its legal status (organised under public or private law) or way of financing, whose primary goal is to independently conduct fundamental research, industrial research or experimental development or to widely disseminate the results of such activities by way of teaching, publication or knowledge transfer.

Where such entity also pursues economic activities, the financing, the costs, and the revenues of those economic activities must be accounted for separately. Undertakings that can exert a decisive influence upon such an entity, for example in the quality of shareholders or members, may not enjoy a preferential access to the results generated by it.

Within the UK Space Agency, this means:

• Universities – higher education institutions
• Non-profit research and technology organisations (RTOs) including catapults
• Public sector organisations (PSOs)
• Public sector research establishments (PSREs)
• Research Council Institutes
• Research Organisations (ROs)
• Charities

Research organisations should be non-profit distributing to qualify. They should explain how they will disseminate the output of their project research as outlined in the application. Research organisations who are engaged in economic activity (i.e. putting goods or services onto market) will be treated as business enterprises and subject to Subsidy Control intervention rates.

4.1 Research Organisations

Universities undertaking non-economic research activity will be funded at 80% of full economic cost. All other research organisations will be funded at 100% of eligible costs.

4.2 Public Sector Organisations and Charities

Public Sector Organisations and Charities can work with enterprises to achieve innovation through knowledge, skills and resources. These organisations must not take part in any economic activity or gain economic benefit from a project. They can apply for 100% funding of eligible costs, providing all of the following conditions are satisfied:

• They are undertaking research (this may be experimental, theoretical or critical investigation work to gain knowledge, skills or understanding which is vital to the project)
• They meet requirements for dissemination of their project results and state in the application how this will be achieved
• They include eligible costs for research purposes in the total research organisation involvement
• They ensure they are not applying for funding towards costs which are already being paid from the public purse such as labour or overheads

4.3 Third Sector

Third Sector organisations are primarily voluntary and community organisations, such as associations, self-help groups, mutuals and cooperatives. Third sector organisations can be non-funding partners in a project.

5. Subsidy Control: Enterprises

5.1 Streamlined Scheme for Research, Development and Innovation

This award is being offered under the Research, Development and Innovation Streamlined Subsidy Scheme subcategory 2: Industrial Research and Experimental Development Projects in accordance with section 10(4) of the Subsidy Control Act 2022. Projects funded as part of this scheme qualify as “industrial research” or “experimental development”, where:

• “Industrial research” means the planned research or critical investigation aimed at the acquisition of new knowledge and skills for developing new products, processes or services or for bringing about a significant improvement in existing products, processes or services. It can include the creation of component parts to complex systems and may include prototypes in a laboratory or environment with simulated interfaces to existing systems, particularly for generic technology validation

• “Experimental development” means acquiring, combining, shaping and using existing scientific, technological, business and other relevant knowledge and skills with the aim of developing new or improved products, processes or services. This may include, for example, activities aimed at the conceptual definition, planning and documentation of new products, processes or services

Experimental development may comprise prototyping, demonstrating, piloting, testing and validation of new or improved products, processes or services in environments representative of real-life operating conditions. The primary objective is to make further technical improvements on products, processes or services that are not substantially set. This may include the development of a commercially usable prototype or pilot which is not necessarily the final product and which is too expensive to produce for it to be used only for demonstration and validation purposes.

Experimental development does not include routine or periodic changes made to existing products, production lines, manufacturing processes, services and other operations in progress, even if those changes may represent improvements.

Further guidance around these definitions can be found within the Research, Development and Innovation Streamlined Route guidance. The onus is on applicants to determine which category their project falls within based on their knowledge of the work they are proposing to undertake and the UK Space Agency cannot provide pre-application advice on which to select.

Subsidies given under these categories are subject to maximum award amounts and subsidy ratios set out in the Research, Development and Innovation Streamlined Subsidy Scheme. These are as follows:

	Industrial Research	Experimental Development
Small Enterprises	70% of the eligible project costs	45% of the eligible project costs
Medium Enterprises	60% of the eligible project costs	35% of the eligible project costs
Large Enterprises	50% of the eligible project costs	25% of the eligible project costs
Academic Partner	80% Full Economic Cost	80% Full Economic Cost

Enterprises may receive a 15% uplift to the subsidy ratios where the project involves collaboration between enterprises, where at least one of the enterprises is an SME, or between an enterprise and one or more research and knowledge dissemination organisation, which must have the right to publish its own research results. Academic partners on projects led by enterprises will still be funded in all cases at 80% of full economic cost.

For the purposes of subsidy control, the following definitions are applicable.

A small enterprise has an annual turnover below £10.2 million, a balance sheet total below £5.1 million and the average number of employees must not be more than 50.

A medium enterprise has an annual turnover below £36 million, a balance sheet total below £18 million and the average number of employees must be no more than 250.

A large enterprise has an annual turnover above £36 million, a balance sheet total above £18 million and the average number of employees is above 250.

To qualify, two of the three conditions in the above definition must be met.

Applicants should note that the maximum award amount for both industrial research and experimental development projects is £3 million per enterprise per project. Due to cumulation rules and limits of the scheme, organisations seeking project funding that would exceed a total of £3 million from public bodies in the last 3 years for this project will be ineligible to apply for this opportunity.

Applicants must ensure that they supply the correct information that allows the UK Space Agency to award grants within the scheme. It is the responsibility of the grant funder to ensure compliance with the relevant subsidy controls rules and the applicant to assist the funder in doing this by acting within the terms and conditions of the scheme.

Subsidy Control

The UK Space Agency supports organisations to invest in research, development and innovation. The support we provide is consistent with the UK’s international obligations and commitments to Subsidy Control.

This scheme provides funding that is not classed by the UK Space Agency as a subsidy by not being deemed a subsidy in accordance with Section 2 of the Subsidy Control Act 2022. Applicants should still seek independent legal advice on what this means before applying. Further information about the Subsidy Control Act is provided in Annex 1 (Subsidy Control).

No subsidy status is only granted to organisations which declared that they will not use the funding in any way which gives them selective economic or commercial advantage, or in any way that would determine the funding as a subsidy as defined by the Subsidy Control Act 2022 or the EU-UK Trade Cooperation Agreement.

It is the responsibility of the lead organisation to make sure all collaborators on the project remain compliant with these requirements. It is important to note that it is the activity that an organisation is engaged in as part of the project and not its intentions that define whether any support provided could be considered a subsidy.

Applicants can apply for funding for up to 100% of eligible project costs.

6. Subsidy Control: Minimum Financial Assistance

The Subsidy Control Act 2022 includes provision relating to Minimum Financial Assistance (MFA). MFA allows authorities to provide grants that are considered small enough to support individual businesses without giving them an unfair advantage. Enterprises can receive up to £315,000 of MFA funding over a rolling 3 fiscal year period without having to provide match funding. You must declare any previous MFA awards you have received in your application form.

When calculating eligibility for the application of the MFA provision, applicants must also include cumulation of any EU State aid de minimis grants under the EC’s de minimis regulation and Small Amounts of Financial Assistance (SAFA) under the EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement (TCA) for the same 3 fiscal year period. The maximum total under the EC de minimis regulation is €200,000, the maximum total under SAFA is £340,000 or 325,000 Special Drawing Rights. This is for all project types and for most purposes, including operating aid.

The application form asks you to tell us about any awards, including those made under de minimis and SDR, (from any source of public funding) over a rolling 3 fiscal year period.

If you have received an award under de minimis or SDR for the same period, this will be added to your total allowance under MFA. This means that the total award must not exceed £315,000 for any one organisation. You must declare this allowance to any other funding body who requests it.

7. Eligibility Requirements

All UK Space Agency grant recipients are required to meet standard eligibility criteria set out on our grants page. Additional requirements specific to this grant scheme are set out below:

Projects should kick off w/c 3 November 2025 and conclude 31 March 2026.

The project team will be required to be part of the following (but not limited to) as part of project management:

• The grant recipient will attend a kick off meeting with Space Wales to initiate each project.
• The grant recipient will provide written progress reports to Space Wales along with regular review meetings (expected to be on a monthly basis).
• The grant recipient will attend 2 review meetings over the course of the funded period with Space Wales where their progress will be reviewed against the Grant Funding Agreement (GFA).
• The grant recipient will provide milestone deliverables to Space Wales within the proposal using the example template provided.
• The grant recipient will provide evidence of meeting the milestones and providing deliverables agreed in their GFA to Space Wales.
• The grant recipient will provide regular updates on benefits and lessons learned throughout the project.
• Relevant reporting, deliverables and documentation will be shared by Space Wales with the UK Space Agency to allow for the receipting and payment of grant recipient invoices .
• The grant recipient will provide required information to support the North Star Metric monitoring, as set out in Annex 8 of the Grant Funding Agreement (to be used where North Star Metric monitoring is in place)

Information about what can and cannot be claimed using grant funding is available on our grants page. The UK Space Agency will carefully review your submitted budget to ensure all costs included represent eligible costs.

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 submit their request ahead of the application deadline, ideally with a marked up copy of the Grant Funding Agreement detailing requested changes.

All organisations in receipt of grant funding must abide by the UK government Code of Conduct for Grant Recipients.

All projects in receipt of grant funding may 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 (e.g. match funding). Projects are selected for audit using a risk-based approach. The auditor will be appointed by 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 T&S)
• All partner and subcontractor invoices
• Breakdown of overhead costs
• Breakdown of capital usage (e.g. licence, data costs etc)

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

8. Guidance for Preparing an Application

Only the lead organisation must submit an application. It is the lead organisations responsibility to ensure that all required information is complete and accurately submitted before the deadline.

Your application for funding must be submitted by 23:59 on 24 October 2025. This will include:

• your application form
• your budget breakdown spreadsheet
• your National Security Questionnaire (please see guidance on the UK Space Agency’s grants page.

All application documentation must be sent by email to enquiries@spacewales.co.uk with the subject ‘Space Wales Cluster Catalyst Fund Application’.

Applications should be in single-spaced typescript (minimum font size 12-point Arial, minimum 1.5 cm margins all round, including diagrams and tables). Where a template is specified, this must be unaltered. Should any part of the application overrun the specified page limit, including the submission of appendices outside those requested, we will only consider material up to the designated page limit that is in the correct format.

8.1 Budget Spreadsheet

Please use the budget spreadsheet to provide an indication of the costs you expect to incur on the project. These tables will be made available to any external assessors and will be scrutinised by the UK Space Agency to ensure all costs proposed represent eligible expenditure under grant funding terms and conditions.

Please include:

• Subsidy Control category tab: please include each partner organisation proposed and their relevant size, which will automatically populate their subsidy control category. Subcontractors are not included in this section and should be listed as ‘additional costs’ for the lead organisation in the work package breakdown tab
• Work Package breakdown tab: please include a detailed breakdown of each proposed work package and the spend associated with each item. Grant funding is provided on a cost recovery basis and so no profit margins should be included on any item. For any labour costs, please ensure these are broken down by each individual involved in the project
• Proposed Milestone Table tab: grant funding is paid in arrears upon agreement of completed milestone deliverables. Please include details of your proposed milestone deliverables, the work packages these correspond to and how much grant funding is requested
• Summary by Work Package: this tab will automatically populate
• Summary by Organisation: this tab will automatically populate
• Instruments and Equipment tab: please provide details of any instruments or equipment being used for the project, whether these are being purchased specifically for it or have an operational use beyond the end of the project

8.2 Overheads Template

This is only required for applicants utilising custom overhead rates – for academic applicants submitting full economic costing (FEC), please include confirmation of your most recently accepted TRAC methodology or similar to allow the UK Space Agency to validate your overhead costs.

Organisations opting for the 20% of labour cost overhead rates do not need to complete this template.

For organisations who choose the calculated overheads option, the spreadsheet has two sections to complete:

• indirect (administration) overheads
• direct overheads (for those listed in the labour costs table)

Once each section is completed, the ‘total overheads spreadsheet’ will calculate your total amount.

Indirect (administration) overhead

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, human resources, 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 because of undertaking the project. They must be additional, which means over and above your ‘business as usual’ costs.

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

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

Board and senior management

The proportion of salary costs based upon PAYE (gross salary, employer’s NI, company pension contribution, life insurance) 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 based upon PAYE (gross salary, employer’s NI, company pension contribution, life insurance) 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 based upon PAYE (gross salary, employer’s NI, company pension contribution, life insurance) of human resource staff.

Employed estates staff

The salary costs based upon PAYE (gross salary, employer’s NI, company pension contribution, life insurance) of employed cleaning, maintenance, security and other estates staff.

Finance department staff

The salary costs based upon PAYE (gross salary, employer’s NI, company pension contribution, life insurance) 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 or 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

This includes 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

This includes 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 admin staff listed above. Do not include specific costs associated with sales, marketing, product delivery, product literature or reports.

Security and safety costs

This includes costs associated with site and staff safety and security, including signage and health and safety costs.

Building maintenance (administration office facilities only)

This includes 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, or 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, profit-related pay 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 day rate criteria outlined in the cost categories. 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.

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 constituent parts.

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 overhead 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 overhead

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 and listed in the labour costs table. 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)
• 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 the basis of how the costs have been apportioned. 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 overhead section’. You will return to the main overhead tab where you will see a summary of your overhead claim for both direct and indirect overheads.

8.3 Licensing Implications

Your activity may require a licence, granted by the UK Civil Aviation Authority, under the Space Industry Act 2018, Outer Space Act 1986, or both. This must be obtained prior to commencing any licensable activity. For more information on the licensing process, including the types of activity these Acts apply to, minimum timelines, and information required for the licensing process, please visit www.caa.co.uk/space. The CAA encourages potential licence applicants to engage with them early to help identify what licences might be required and guide applicants through the process. We highly recommend reading the CAA’s Space Licensing in the UK document.

9. Assessment of Applications

Applications for this funding scheme will be assessed by Space Wales with support from the UK Space Agency. Relevant independent external assessors will be drawn from a variety of backgrounds including academia, industry and government. All external assessors are required to sign appropriate confidentiality and conflict of interest agreements.

The UK Space Agency now uses standard assessment questions and criteria for grant funding schemes. Full guidance on scoring is available online, including the scoring sheet and information we issue to assessors. The decision of the UK Space Agency is final in all cases. There is no course for appeal, but we provide feedback on all applications. Incomplete or late applications and altered templates will not be considered.

A summary of the assessment process is below:

• Only proposals received by the closing time and date will be considered
• Initial sift of proposals will remove any proposals which do not meet the eligibility criteria
• Eligible proposals will be assessed by reviewers to be scored against assessment criteria
• A moderation panel will follow to ensure consistency in marking
• A scored and ranked list of fundable proposals will be generated. The UK Space Agency takes a portfolio approach to funding, which means we look to fund a range of projects that cover the full breadth of the strategic objectives. This means we may move some fundable proposals up or down the ranked list.
• If needed, clarifications will be sought from organisations
• All applicants will be advised of the outcome
• Due diligence will be conducted throughout the call process as set out in section 8. If due diligence results in irreconcilable differences, the grant will not be placed

The following questions and weightings are applied to this scheme:

Question	Weighting	Application Word Limit
How does your proposal advance the strategic goals identified within the call document and the wider goals of the UK Space Agency?	40%	800
Why do you need grant funding, how will you spend it and how does this represent good value for money for the taxpayer?	10%	500
How will this project catalyse future investment into the Welsh and wider UK space sector through delivery of actions within the Wales Space Strategy?	20%	500
What will be the impact of receiving the grant, both for your organisation, Welsh Space Sector, and wider UK Space Ecosystem?	10%	500
How will you ensure effective delivery of this project throughout its full duration?	20%	600

10. Due Diligence

If your proposal is recommended for funding, the UK Space Agency will conduct due diligence checks ahead of issuing your Grant Funding Agreement 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. We expect lead organisations to conduct due diligence on project partners and may ask to see confirmation this has been completed.

11. Confidentiality

The procedure for handling and assessing the applications for project funding will be as follows:

• Completed applications must be submitted to the UK Space Agency at the email address specified in the guidance documentation. All bids will be held in confidence
• 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 by the panel 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
• Information submitted for those projects selected for funding will be retained by UK Space Agency but remain confidential
• Summary information about the projects selected for funding may be published on the UK Space Agency website

The UK Space Agency will monitor the funded project through project reports and the submission of project deliverables. The Agency requests that any confidential information is clearly marked Commercial in Confidence.

12. ANNEX 1: Q&A

12.1 Can I resubmit a proposal that was rejected in a previous call?

Yes, you may re-submit your proposal which will then go through the independent evaluation process when being considered for funding. We recommend that any previous feedback is taken into consideration.

12.2 Do the match funding funds have to be immediately available when applying for funding?

Yes, the PV funding must have been agreed and secured at the time of applying for the grant so that the project can commence as soon as the grant agreement has been completed.

12.3 Can the UK Space Agency provide advice about any type of collaboration/partnership programme that the Agency is promoting?

The Agency does not promote any particular collaboration although collaboration in essence is encouraged in projects.

12.4 Can a non-UK based organisation receive funding?

The UK must lead the consortium. A non-UK based organisation cannot receive national funding as the primary focus of UK Space Agency is on the growth of the UK sector; therefore, any monies awarded cannot go outside the UK to a partner body. If the proposed non-UK capability is essential the work can be subcontracted out, however the proposal must demonstrate clearly that this resource is not available in the UK.

In such instances the subcontractor cannot be a partner to the project. However, if a non-UK entity wants to be a partner in the project that is acceptable. This can be facilitated by the non-UK entity organisation providing PV or capability as contribution-in-kind.

12.5 What format will the grant agreement take for any funded proposals, and can I adapt this to suit my proposal?

We have provided a copy of our standard grant funding agreement. This is the document that will be used as the formal mechanism for any successful bidders to receive grant funding. Applicants are required to accept the main terms of this grant funding agreement when submitting your application.

Applicants requesting changes to the agreement are required to submit a marked-up copy of the published grant funding agreement setting out the proposed variations, along with a justification for any amendment to the standard grant funding agreement terms. Please be aware that the UK Space Agency will only consider variations which are requested where the Applicant would be in breach of legal requirements or statutory regulations by complying with the clause, or series of clauses.

12.6 Should we explicitly state the overhead rate attached to salary costs, or would you prefer it to be amalgamated into a combined salary/overhead cost for each staff position?

The finance template includes notes on what information is required.

12.7 Do labour costs relate only to staff on a PAYE payroll or would staff employed on short/long-term fixed contracts be eligible?

Costs should be applied for any staff that will be part of the project team/work regardless of employment status within the organisation. However, any costs for project work done by sub-contractors must be declared as a separate cost to the project. Sub-contractors cannot be partners to the project and justification in the proposal would need to be clearly stated as to the requirement for use of sub-contractors.

12.8 Are referees required to be within the UK?

Referees do not have to be UK specific but must be from recognised international organisations and/or from other known space institutions.

12.9 Does the organisational background information apply only to the lead organisation?

No. All proposals must include organisational background information for all those involved, therefore including those put forward in collaboration.

12.10 Is there a difference between a partner and a sub-contractor?

Yes. If you are collaborating with another organisation or company, then they are your project partner and will be included in your proposal as subject to PV contribution.

If you wish to sub-contract some work, then that company cannot be considered as a project partner as payment to them will be made from the award and they will therefore be included in the costs of the project.

12.11 Would sub-contractors have any IP publication rights?

If you sub-contract work this may not affect the IP publication rights of your company, but this is for the lead organisation to confirm.

12.12 Does the maximum grant award offered include the PV contribution?

The maximum grant is the award value the UK Space Agency will give to a successful proposal. However, to industrial organisations (e.g., SME/LE) and FEC to not-for-profit organisations/academia. Therefore, your equivalent PV contribution must match that criterion.

12.13 Is an independent audit required of the total cost of the project?

Confirmation is required that the Grant Recipient has expended the sums in respect of the period in which milestone payments have been claimed. For this purpose, a report must be completed and sent to the Grant Funder within 3 months of the end of the grant or annually, whichever is shorter. As per the terms of the Grant Funding Agreement, it is not possible to claim the cost of this report.

12.14 My organisation is based outside of Wales, but the work I wish to undertake will benefit the Welsh Space Sector. Can I apply?

Proposals led by organisations based in Wales, or those that demonstrate collaboration with Welsh partners, are particularly encouraged. Nevertheless, applications from organisations located outside of Wales are also eligible, provided the proposed activities align with the objectives of the Wales Space Strategy and deliver clear benefits to the Welsh Space Sector. For any queries regarding eligibility please contact enquiries@spacewales.co.uk.