Opportunity status:
Open
Funders:
Funding type:
Grant
Total fund:
£200,000
Award range:
£20,000 - £100,000
Publication date:
18 December 2025
Opening date:
12 January 2026 9:00am UK time
Closing date:
31 March 2026 4:00pm UK time
Apply for funding to engage the public with Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) supported science and/or raise engagement capacity in STFC communities.
You must work for an organisation that:
* is based in the UK
* has audited accounts
It is essential that proposals have strong and clear links to the and include a subject matter expert in an STFC funded remit area.
The full economic cost (FEC) of your project can be up to £125,000 for TRAC organisations. We will fund 80% of the FEC. Non-TRAC organisations will be funded at 100%, up to £100,000.
Your project must be between 24 and 36 months in duration.
Host institution
This funding opportunity is open to organisations based in the UK with standard or non-standard eligibility.
.
STFC can only fund organisations that have audited accounts. If this does not describe your organisation, you must work in partnership with an organisation that can receive the funding on your behalf.
Applicant eligibility
Almost anyone can apply for a Nucleus award, including:
* grant funded researchers
* early career researchers
* STFC scientists, technicians and engineers
* facility users
* schools
* museums
* science communicators
* universities
* colleges
* community interest companies
* libraries
The principal applicant must be eligible to apply on behalf of the organisation that would hold the award.
Every application must include an SME in an STFC funded area of science or technology. While these SMEs often play an active role in delivering the engagement activities, this is not mandatory. They may act as an adviser on the scientific content.
If applicants have any questions about applicant eligibility, please contact the Public Engagement team at and we will advise on how you may proceed.
This funding opportunity is open to organisations with standard/non-standard eligibility. .
Who is not eligible to apply
* Organisations that are not UK-based
Equality, diversity and inclusion
for all funding applicants. We encourage applications from a diverse range of researchers.
We support people to work in a way that suits their personal circumstances. This includes:
* career breaks
* support for people with caring responsibilities
* flexible working
* alternative working patterns
for UKRI applicants and grant holders during the application and assessment process.
It is essential that proposals demonstrate clear links to the and include a subject matter expert in an STFC funded remit area.
Scope
STFC Nucleus grant holders undertake high quality programmes of public engagement that inspire and involve target audiences with stories of STFC science, technology and facilities. Grant holders may also use Nucleus awards to increase capacity for STFC focused public engagement in the applying institution or appropriate communities of practice.
Engagement programmes
Proposed engagement programmes must either:
* clearly focus on the remit of the STFC-funded science programme
* clearly and demonstrably align to the science and technology work of STFC’s national and international laboratories and facilities
STFC’s remits are:
* astronomy, solar and planetary science
* particle physics
* particle astrophysics
* nuclear physics
* accelerator science
* computational science
* quantum technologies
Nucleus awards will not be awarded unless there is a strong and demonstrable link between the proposed activities and STFC science and technology.
Applicants are responsible for confirming that the science within their proposal falls within the STFC remit, in the answer to the ‘Applicant and team capability to deliver’ question.
Network and capacity building programmes
Nucleus awards may also be used for activities that are dedicated to developing community networks or capacity building in STFC focussed public engagement. This may be the sole purpose of a Nucleus award, or an application may combine engagement activities and networking into a coherent package.
Nucleus awards and STFC’s Wonder Initiative
The is about giving under-served communities an equal voice by listening, understanding, and responding to what people want to know about science and technology.
Wonder marks a long-term commitment by STFC public engagement to move our focus towards audience driven public engagement with under-served communities in the most socio-economically deprived areas of the UK. Financial support through Nucleus awards is an important part of the Wonder Initiative.
The target audience for Wonder is defined according to indices of multiple deprivation. Specifically, STFC is interested in supporting audience driven engagement that works with audiences, particularly those eight to 14 years old and their families and carers, from the 40% most socio-economically deprived areas of the UK.
STFC defines the 40% most socio-economically deprived areas of the UK as those areas listed in the bottom two quintiles of the indices of multiple deprivation for the respective part of the UK.
Applicants are explicitly invited to submit Nucleus awards that work with the Wonder target audience.
We encourage applications that propose engagement with audiences considered to have low ‘science capital’.
Applicants may choose which audiences to engage with and the methods of engagement. These must be outlined in the proposal.
Nucleus awards will not be awarded for the sole purpose of authorship and publication of books and novels, though proposals in which the production of a book is an output of a wider programme will be considered.
Linking to the STFC public engagement strategy
Applicants should use their proposal to clearly explain how their Nucleus award will further the aims of the .
Applications that highlight the social, ethical, and economic benefits of research are welcomed.
Applicants are encouraged to propose novel or innovative approaches towards engagement as part of their Nucleus award, as long as these are demonstrably well planned and have clearly defined audiences.
STFC focuses heavily on evaluation and applicants must provide a clear evaluation plan showing details of how the outputs, outcomes and impacts of the Nucleus award will be captured and evaluated.
We require applicants to report on the outcomes of their Nucleus award in line with the, which describes our approach towards effective engagement. We suggest that applicants should familiarise themselves with the framework and consider how it could be used to evaluate their engagement programme from its inception. Applicants are reminded that evaluation costs can be included within the overall budget.
Duration
The duration of this award is a minimum of 24 months and a maximum of 36 months.
Funding available
The Public Engagement Nucleus Awards scheme falls under the full economic costing framework. Therefore, all costs that contribute to the FEC of the proposal should be included under the cost headings as shown in the ‘’ section of the STFC guidance for applicants web page. As the Nucleus award scheme has no capital budget, applicants cannot request funds under the equipment heading.
STFC will fund a maximum of £100,000 for each proposal. For those research organisations (ROs) that are subject to, this will be 80% of the overall costs (that is a maximum of £125,000 at FEC). For non-TRAC ROs, please add all your costs under the ‘Exceptions’ fund heading.
Other than the restrictions outlined below, there are no set restrictions on the type of costs that may be applied for. For example, contributions to salaries, cost of materials, and travel and subsistence are eligible.
What we will not fund
The following costs are ineligible for support through Nucleus awards:
* applications with a start date earlier than 1st September 2026
* projects where the target audiences are not primarily within the UK
* costs associated with international conferences
* fees or honoraria to people already in paid employment to visit or give talks at schools, societies and so on where such activities would reasonably be undertaken as part of their normal duties
* costs for hardware or equipment over the individual value of £25,000
* infrastructure funding or costs for building construction and maintenance
* projects where it is clear that the project would go ahead irrespective of STFC support
* retrospective funding, including those projects with a start date after the closing date but before the funding decisions are announced
* contingency funds
For applicants from or for schools, note the following ineligible costs:
* programmes of formal education
* school trips to CERN and trips to other laboratories, observatories and science venues unless they are intrinsic to a wider public engagement project
* projects that only involve a single school
We are running this funding opportunity on the new UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Funding Service so please ensure that your organisation is registered. You cannot apply on the Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S) system.
The project lead is responsible for completing the application process on the Funding Service, but we expect all team members and project partners to contribute to the application.
Only the lead research organisation can submit an application to UKRI.
To apply
Select ‘Start application’ near the beginning of this Funding finder page.
1. Confirm you are the project lead.
2. Sign in or create a Funding Service account. To create an account, select your organisation, verify your email address, and set a password. If your organisation is not listed, email
Please allow at least 10 working days for your organisation to be added to the Funding Service. We strongly suggest that if you are asking UKRI to add your organisation to the Funding Service to enable you to apply to this opportunity, you also create an organisation Administration Account. This will be needed to allow the acceptance and management of any grant that might be offered to you.
3. Answer questions directly in the text boxes. You can save your answers and come back to complete them or work offline and return to copy and paste your answers. If we need you to upload a document, follow the upload instructions in the Funding Service. All questions and assessment criteria are listed in the How to apply section on this Funding finder page.
4. Allow enough time to check your application in ‘read-only’ view before sending to your research office.
5. Send the completed application to your research office for checking. They will return it to you if it needs editing.
6. Your research office will submit the completed and checked application to UKRI.
Where indicated, you can also demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant.
When including images, you must:
* provide a descriptive caption or legend for each image immediately underneath it in the text box (this must be outside the image and counts towards your word limit)
* insert each new image on a new line
* use files smaller than 5MB and in JPEG, JPG, JPE, JFI, JIF, JFIF, PNG, GIF, BMP or WEBP format
Images should only be used to convey important visual information that cannot easily be put into words. The following are not permitted, and your application may be rejected if you include:
* sentences or paragraphs of text
* tables
* excessive quantities of images
A few words are permitted where the image would lack clarity without the contextual words, such as a diagram, where text labels are required for an axis or graph column.
For more guidance on the Funding Service, see:
* * *
References
References should be included within the word count of the appropriate question section. You should use your discretion when including references and prioritise those most pertinent to the application.
Hyperlinks can be used in reference information. When including references, you should consider how your references will be viewed and used by the assessors, ensuring that:
* references are easily identifiable by the assessors
* references are formatted as appropriate to your research
* persistent identifiers are used where possible
General use of hyperlinks
Applications should be self-contained. You should only use hyperlinks to link directly to reference information. You must not include links to web resources to extend your application. Assessors are not required to access links to conduct assessment or recommend a funding decision.
Generative artificial intelligence (AI)
Use of generative AI tools to prepare funding applications is permitted, however, caution should be applied.
For more information see our policy on the .
Deadline
STFC must receive your application by 31 March 2026 at 4:00pm UK time.
You will not be able to apply after this time.
Make sure you are aware of and follow any internal institutional deadlines.
Following the submission of your application to this funding opportunity, your application cannot be changed, and submitted applications will not be amended. If your application does not follow the guidance, it may be rejected.
Personal data
Processing personal data
STFC, as part of UKRI, will need to collect some personal information to manage your Funding Service account and the registration of your funding applications.
We will handle personal data in line with UK data protection legislation and manage it securely. For more information, including how to exercise your rights, read our .
Sensitive information
If you or a core team member need to tell us something you wish to remain confidential, email
Include in the subject line: [the funding opportunity title; sensitive information; your Funding Service application number].
Typical examples of confidential information include:
* individual is unavailable until a certain date (for example due to parental leave)
* declaration of interest
* additional information about eligibility to apply that would not be appropriately shared in the ‘Applicant and team capability’ section
* conflict of interest for UKRI to consider in reviewer or panel participant selection
* the application is an invited resubmission
For information about how UKRI handles personal data, read .
Institutional Matched Funding
There is no requirement for matched funding from the institutions hosting the project lead, project co-leads or other staff employed on the application, beyond the standard 20% FEC for TRAC organisations. Expert reviewers and panels assessing UKRI funding applications must not consider levels of institutional matched funding as a factor on which to base recommendations. Direct and in-kind contributions from third party project partners are encouraged.
This policy does not remove the need for support from host organisations, who must provide the necessary research environment and infrastructure for award-specific activities funded by UKRI, for example research facilities, training and development of staff.
Publication of outcomes
STFC, as part of UKRI, will publish the outcomes of this funding opportunity at .
If your application is successful, we will publish some personal information on the .
Summary
Word limit: 550
In plain English, provide a summary we can use to identify the most suitable experts to assess your application.
We usually make this summary publicly available on external-facing websites, therefore do not include any confidential or sensitive information. Make it suitable for a variety of readers, for example:
* opinion-formers
* policymakers
* the public
* the wider research community
Guidance for writing a summary
Clearly describe your proposed work in terms of:
* context
* the challenge the project addresses
* aims and objectives
* potential applications and benefits
Core team
List the key members of your team and assign them roles from the following:
* project lead (PL)
* project co-lead (UK) (PcL)
* specialist
* grant manager
* professional enabling staff
Only list one individual as project lead.
The project lead must be from the organisation that is applying for the award.
UKRI has introduced a new addition to the ‘Specialist’ role type. Public contributors such as people with lived experience can now be added to an application.