Notice

Guidance for applicants: Space for All 2021 v1.0

Published 10 March 2021

1. ‘SPACE FOR ALL’ COMMUNITY AWARD SCHEME 2021

2. BACKGROUND

The ‘Space for All’ community funding scheme supports the aims of the UK Space Agency by encouraging and supporting the use of space as an inspiring context for teaching and learning. In doing so, it helps address the skills needs of the UK space sector, improving awareness of the UK’s space programme and STEM literacy in general.

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

3. AIMS OF THE SCHEME

The Agency anticipates making at least £65,000 available under the scheme for financial year 2021/22. This is an extremely competitive process in which we seek to offer small grants up to a maximum of £10,000 for each award.

The scheme is run to support the education and outreach aims and objectives of the UK Space Agency, as set out in its Education, Skills and Outreach Strategy.

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

• capitalise on the inspirational value of space to engage relevant audiences

• demonstrate new techniques that can be repeated for larger audiences

• enable a space-related element of a larger activity

• develop and/or deliver space-related curriculum enrichment activities

• deliver activities to promote careers in the space sector

4. TIMETABLE

We anticipate the following schedule:

• opening of award scheme – 10 March 2021

• deadline for proposals to be received – 5pm 30 April 2021

• outcome notification – w/c 14 June 2021

• projects to start - no earlier than 21 June 2021

• projects to be completed - by 18 March 2022

5. ELIGIBILITY

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

• are based in the UK

• have a UK bank account (grant payments will be made in UK sterling)

• can demonstrate the ability to effectively manage a project

• can provide evidence of a process for declaring and managing conflicts of interest for project members

• for projects, pass due diligence checks on viability (financial standing assessment, conflicts of interest, technical expertise)

• have the support of their sponsoring organisation or work in partnership with an organisation which can receive the funds

• can nominate a referee who can support their application

• comply with the rules stated in this guidance document

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

Relevant audiences include young people, students, the public, teachers, opinion formers and the media (including traditional, internet and social media). Other than in exceptional circumstances, audiences should be mainly in the UK.

Subject to further guidelines below, grants may cover all types of expenses, including:

• contributions to salaries

• costs of materials

• travel and subsistence

Subject to further guidelines below, grants may not cover:

• fees for people already in paid employment where the proposed work could be reasonably undertaken as part of their normal duties

• unclear costings and those which do not appear to be based on valid estimates

• expensive items (for example, equipment or buildings) unless they are intrinsic to the success of the project

• projects that would go ahead even without UK Space Agency funds

6. APPLICATION PROCESS

6.1 Submitting your application

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

6.2 Deadline

All applications should be submitted by no later than 5pm on Friday 30 April 2021.

6.3 Submitting your Application Form

Please complete and submit the application form, with any attachments, to Phil Weaver by email: phil.weaver@ukspaceagency.gov.uk

6.4 Notification and payment of awards

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

Payment is made in arrears, on completion of your project.

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

Payment is never made in advance of work being done.

Grants will extend over financial year 2021/2022 from the date the Grant Funding Agreement (GFA) is executed (signed).

Projects to start no earlier than 21 June 2021. Projects to be completed by Friday 18 March 2022.

The commencement date of the project, that is, from when costs to be reimbursed under the grant can be incurred from, should be the date the grant is executed (signed). Please be aware that it is not best practice to backdate the project commencement date from the date of execution, so successful applicants should not delay in returning signed grant agreements, risking shortening the project window. Until a grant is signed, no commitment to funding has been made and, therefore, any work undertaken is at risk and should only be started with agreement from UKSA.

The final claim for the grant will need to be received by the UK Space Agency by Friday 18 March 2022 to enable the payment to be processed before the end of the financial year. For this purpose, final report and grant claim form templates will be issued to successful applicants.

7. ASSESSMENT OF APPLICATIONS

Applications will be referred to a panel comprised of judges with experience in STEM-based education and outreach projects from a range of backgrounds including industry, academia and both public and private sectors, who will score and rank them against the criteria below. The judges will then meet to finalise the marks and funds will be provisionally allocated to the highest ranked applications.

8. EVALUATION CRITERIA

Each application will be assessed with respect to five criteria:

1 Quality

2 Feasibility

3 Audience

4 Fit to Call

5 Value for Money

Each criterion will be scored on a scale between 0 to 10 taking into consideration the following.

8.1 Quality

Have the applicants put together a clear, easily comprehensible application?

Do the applicants have any relevant experience?

Have the applicants considered how to promote the project to their audience?

Have the applicants considered how to evaluate the project?

8.2 Feasibility

How likely is the project to meet its objectives?

Are there realistic timescales?

Is there a sensible team behind the project?

Is there a clear list of project deliverables?

8.3 Audience

Consider both the size of the audience and the likely impact on each individual.

Is this project reaching new audiences?

Is the audience a target audience for the UK Space Agency?

8.4 Fit to Call

How well is the proposal aligned to the call?

8.5 Value for Money

Is the sum requested appropriate?

Can the resources be used again?

Could the project be funded another more appropriate way?

The criteria are also assessed with respect to the following considerations.

• Ability to explain the relevance of space to UK citizens or to use space to deliver educational aims or increased interest in STEM subjects in the UK. Activities that highlight UK achievements in space are especially welcomed

• Wider relevance to the UK Space Agency aims as set out in the Education, Skills and Outreach Strategy

• Need for funding, for example, would this happen without UK Space Agency funding? Would some other organisation be better suited to fund this?

• Impact – including numbers reached and quality of experience for those involved

• Sustainability – projects that may become self-sustaining, after the initial injection of UK Space Agency funding, will be looked upon favourably

• Quality of bid – the bid should demonstrate the ability of the team to deliver the proposed work. Clear costing and evaluation methods should be provided

• Bids that would leverage funding from other organisations will be looked upon favourably

9. EXCLUSION CRITERIA

Applications will be automatically disqualified if, for example, they do not relate at all to the work of the UK Space Agency.

10. REPORTING REQUIREMENTS

A final report (including project summary, delivery numbers, evaluation report, and financial report), summary of spend with receipts, etc., and invoice will need to be submitted before payment can be made in arrears on the completion of your project.

Where staged payments have been requested and agreed, interim reports, summaries of spend with receipts, etc., and invoices will need to be submitted before payments can be made in arrears.

11. CONFIDENTIALITY

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

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

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

12. GUIDELINES FOR PROJECTS

12.1 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/contracts to undertake the same activities.

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

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.

13.1 Invoices

UKSA will only pay on actuals; therefore, we expect 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 UKSA ahead of the costs being incurred and a Grant Change Notice (GCN) executed.

13.2 Staff Costs

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

13.3 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 during the negotiation stage 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, etc.) 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

Any overheads should be stated separately from the pay costs, charged at 20%. This 20% overhead should be recorded in the overhead column in the budget breakdown; this allows you to claim 20% of your pay costs as overhead. This includes both direct and indirect overheads. The overheads relating to contingent workforce/consultants should be included within their daily rate and not included in either the calculation of the 20% overhead allowance or charged to it.

By exception, if you consider that your overheads cannot be accommodated within the 20% rate and would like UKSA to consider an alternative level, you may submit a detailed breakdown of your proposed direct and indirect costs. Please note the following:

• overheads should be stated separately from the pay costs and their constituent elements identified and recorded by work package in the budget breakdown spreadsheet

• in considering the value for money of your proposal, UKSA will take into account the full costs of the activity including overheads

• once the overhead recovery rate has been approved, it cannot be exceeded unless agreed as part of a Grant Change Notice

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 UK Space Agency.

16. INELIGIBLE EXPENDITURE

The following costs are ineligible.

• Payment that supports 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 (that is, 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

• 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 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 UKSA. No claims for alcohol will be accepted.

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

17.1 Limits:

• accommodation: £140 per night

• breakfast: £5

• lunch: £5

• dinner: £15

17.2 Travel:

• all travel claimed must be using Economy rates

• tolls, ferry costs, parking and congestion charge: receipted costs for ferries, and toll 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. GRANT FUNDING AGREEMENT

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. The terms therein are issued to us via the Cabinet Office and Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS). No material changes to the terms will be considered. UKSA has very limited delegated Authority to change the template. Any changes are by exception, not a formality. 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. Any such changes must be requested before the Grant Call has closed and the UKSA reserves the right to not consider any changes submitted after this point.

19. GRANT RECIPIENT CODE OF CONDUCT

All organisations in receipt of grant funding must abide by the UK Government Code of Conduct for Grant Recipients: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/754555/2018-11-06_Code_of_Conduct_for_Grant_Recipients.pdf

20. DUE DILIGIENCE

UKSA 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 is determined by the value, nature and complexity of the grant scheme. All applications will be subject to basic checks such as Companies House checks.

Additional pre-award due diligence may include but is not limited to the following.

• 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/Value For Money assessment

• 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 is not limited to the following.

• 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/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

Grant Applicants who opt to work with project partners, companies involved in delivery of the project, will assume all responsibility for partner due diligence.

Applicants will need to demonstrate they have carried out a sufficient level of due diligence regarding their proposed project partners. Applicants will need to demonstrate they have carried out minimum checks at application 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 submitting a partner reasonable assurance statement. The evidence should be consistent with the checks that we would conduct on our Grant Recipients, for example, basic financial health checks, 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 confirm that they, and project partners, have in place appropriate anti-bribery and anti-corruption internal policies, and a process for declaring and managing conflicts of interest.

21. QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE

Can I propose starting the project before 21 June 2021?

We ask that projects commence no earlier than 21 June to allow time for judging, due diligence and signing agreements following budget approval.

Can I finish my project after 18 March 2022?

In order to reimburse project costs that have been expended and pay invoices by the end of the financial year, we will need a final report (including project summary, delivery numbers, evaluation report, and financial report) by 18 March 2022. If, for example, the final event of a series of events slips and cannot be delivered until after 18 March 2022, please contact us as soon as possible.

Can anyone apply for an award?

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

22. HOW TO CONTACT US

If you have any questions that are not answered in these notes for guidance, please contact Phil Weaver at phil.weaver@ukspaceagency.gov.uk

Live Grant Call Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs): All questions received while the call is live will be published along with the answer provided. Any information which may identify the party who has asked the question and/or commercially sensitive information will be removed.