Public Engagement Spark Awards 2024B (Grant)

Host institution

Organisations that apply must be based in the UK.

Organisations that apply must produce an annual financial report and accounts that are available on request. These must have been either prepared or submitted by a qualified accountant who is a member of a recognised professional accountancy body, including:

• The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA)

• Association of International Accountants (AIA)

• Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA)

• The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA)

• The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW)

• Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS)

• Chartered Accountants Ireland (CAI)

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 Spark award, including:

• grant funded researchers

• STFC scientists, technicians and engineers

• STFC facility users

• schools

• museums

• science communicators

• universities & colleges

• community interest companies

• libraries

• community groups

• amateur astronomy groups

The project lead must be eligible to apply on behalf of the organisation that would hold the award.

Every application must include a subject matter expert (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. The SME can be any one of these core team roles holders:

• project lead (PL)

• project co-lead (UK) (PcL)

• specialist

If you have any questions about applicant eligibility, please contact the public engagement team: stfcpublicengagement@stfc.ac.uk and we will advise on how you may proceed.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has introduced new role types for funding opportunities being run on the new UKRI Funding Service.

For full details, visit Eligibility as an individual.

Who is not eligible to apply

Organisations based outside of the UK are not eligible to apply for this funding opportunity.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

We are committed to achieving equality of opportunity 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

Find out more about equality, diversity and inclusion at UKRI.

Aim

We are looking to support projects that do one or more of the following:

• deliver high-quality public engagement activities in the areas supported by us

• introduce STFC science and technology to new audiences

• highlight the achievements of STFC science and technology

• demonstrate the value to the UK of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)

• work with our public engagement and communication teams

Spark awards encourage ‘novel approaches’ to engagement and audience. However, applications that use established engagement methods are welcomed.

Scope

STFC Spark grant holders undertake high quality programmes of public engagement that inspire and involve target audiences with stories of STFC science, technology and facilities.

Engagement programmes

Proposed engagement programmes must either:

• clearly focus on the remit of the STFC 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

Spark awards will not be awarded unless there is a strong and demonstrable link between the proposed activities and STFC science and technology.

Spark awards and STFC’s Wonder Initiative

The Wonder Initiative 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 Spark awards is an important part of the Wonder Initiative.

The target audience for Wonder is defined according to indices of multiple deprivation. Specifically, we are 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.

We define 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.

You are explicitly invited to submit Spark applications that work with the Wonder target audience.

We encourage applications that propose engagement with audiences considered to have low ‘science capital’.

You may choose which audiences to engage with and the methods of engagement. These must be outlined in the proposal.

Spark 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

You should use your proposal to clearly explain how your Spark award will further the aims of the STFC public engagement strategy.

Applications that highlight the social, ethical, and economic benefits of research are welcomed.

You are encouraged to propose novel or innovative approaches towards engagement as part of your Spark award, as long as these are demonstrably well planned and have clearly defined audiences.

We focus heavily on evaluation and you must provide a clear evaluation plan showing details of how the outputs, outcomes and impacts of the Spark award will be captured and evaluated.

We require you to report on the outcomes of your Spark award in line with the STFC public engagement evaluation framework, which describes our approach towards effective engagement. We suggest that you should familiarise yourself with the framework and consider how it could be used to evaluate your engagement programme from its inception. You are reminded that evaluation costs can be included within the overall budget.

Duration

The duration of this award is between 12 and 36 months.

Funding available

The total cost of your project can be up to £20,000 and we will fund 100% of this.

The funding opportunity is outside of the FEC framework however, the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Funding Service does not currently capture non-FEC cost headings therefore for this funding opportunity please put all requested costs under the individual ‘Exceptions’ fund headings.

What we will not fund

The following costs are ineligible for support through Spark awards:

• projects where the target audiences are not primarily within the UK

• 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 £10,000

• 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

• applications for the sole purpose of authorship and publication of books and novels

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

Trusted Research and Innovation (TR&I)

UKRI is committed in ensuring that effective international collaboration in research and innovation takes place with integrity and within strong ethical frameworks. Trusted Research and Innovation (TR&I) is a UKRI work programme designed to help protect all those working in our thriving and collaborative international sector by enabling partnerships to be as open as possible, and as secure as necessary. Our TR&I Principles set out UKRI’s expectations of organisations funded by UKRI in relation to due diligence for international collaboration.

As such, applicants for UKRI funding may be asked to demonstrate how their proposed projects will comply with our approach and expectation towards TR&I, identifying potential risks and the relevant controls you will put in place to help proportionately reduce these risks.

Further guidance and information about TR&I, including where applicants can find additional support, can be found on UKRI’s website.

Assessment process

We will assess your application using the following process.

Panel

We will invite experts to use the evidence provided by reviewers to assess the quality of your application and rank it alongside other applications after which the panel will make a funding recommendation.

Timescale

We aim to complete the assessment process within four months of receiving your application.

Feedback

We will give feedback with the outcome of your application.

Principles of assessment

We support the San Francisco declaration on research assessment and recognise the relationship between research assessment and research integrity.

Find out about the UKRI principles of assessment and decision making.

Assessment areas

The assessment areas we will use are:

• vision

• approach

• applicant and team capability to deliver

• resources and cost justification

• evaluation plan

• dissemination plan

• target audience

Find details of assessment questions and criteria under the ‘Application questions’ heading in the ‘How to apply’ section.

Click here to start application on the UKRI Funding Service: 

https://funding-service.ukri.org/OPP740/apply/755

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 support@funding-service.ukri.orgPlease 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. You should:

• use images sparingly and only to convey important information that cannot easily be put into words

• insert each new image onto a new line

• provide a descriptive legend for each image immediately underneath it (this counts towards your word limit)

• files must be smaller than 5MB and in JPEG, JPG, JPE, JFI, JIF, JFIF, PNG, GIF, BMP or WEBP format

Watch our research office webinars about the new Funding Service.

For more guidance on the Funding Service, see:

• how applicants use the Funding Service

• how research offices use the Funding Service

• how reviewers use the Funding Service

You must not include links to web resources to extend your application.

References

Applications should be self-contained, and hyperlinks should only be used to provide links directly to reference information. To ensure the information’s integrity is maintained, where possible, persistent identifiers such as digital object identifiers should be used. Assessors are not required to access links to carry out assessment or recommend a funding decision. Applicants should use their discretion when including references and prioritise those most pertinent to the application.

References should be included in the appropriate question section of the application and be easily identifiable by the assessors for example (Smith, Research Paper, 2019)

You must not include links to web resources to extend your application.

Deadline

STFC must receive your application by 28 November 2024 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 the funding opportunity, your application cannot be changed, and applications will not be returned for amendment. 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 privacy notice.

Publication of outcomes

STFC, as part of UKRI, will publish the outcomes of this funding opportunity at STFC board and panel outcomes.

If your application is successful, we will publish some personal information on the UKRI Gateway to Research.

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 Subject Matter Expert (SME) can be any one of the PL, PcL or specialist role holders.

Find out more about UKRI’s core team roles in funding applications.

Application questions

Vision

Word limit: 500

What are you hoping to achieve with your proposed work?

What the assessors are looking for in your response

Explain how your proposed work:

• is of high quality and importance

• is timely given current trends, context, and needs

We expect you to demonstrate:

• a clearly defined rationale for the proposed programme and evidence to support this, including how this links to the aims of the STFC Public Engagement Strategy

• a programme of high-quality public engagement

• that the programme inspires and involves target audiences with stories of STFC science, people, technology and/or facilities

• that the engagement activities clearly focus on the STFC science programme remit or align with the work of the STFC national and international laboratories and facilities

References may be included within this section.

You may demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant. Further details are provided in the service.

Approach

Word limit: 750

How are you going to deliver your proposed work?

What the assessors are looking for in your response

Explain how you have designed your approach so that it:

• clearly describes the different engagement, networking, or capacity building activities planned as part of the project

• clearly identifies target audiences and the appropriateness of the methodology proposed to reach and retain these groups

• provides evidence of audience demand

• demonstrates and builds upon learning from previous activities and wider sector good practice

You are expected to upload a single PDF document to provide evidence of audience demand, if applicable.

The Funding Service will provide document upload details when you apply. If this does not apply to your proposed work, you will be able to indicate this in the Funding Service.

References may be included within this section.

Applicant and team capability to deliver

Word limit: 750

Why are you the right individual or team to successfully deliver the proposed work?

What the assessors are looking for in your response

Evidence of how you, and if relevant your team, have:

• the relevant experience to deliver the proposed work

• the right balance of skills and expertise to cover the proposed work

• the appropriate leadership and management skills to deliver the work and your approach to developing others

Complete this as a narrative. Do not format it like a CV.

UKRI has introduced new role types for funding opportunities being run on the new Funding Service.

For full details, see Eligibility as an individual.

Resources and cost justification

Word limit: 500

What will you need to deliver your proposed work and how much will it cost?

What the assessors are looking for in your response

Justify the application’s more costly resources, in particular:

• project staff

• travel and subsistence

• any consumables beyond typical requirements, or that are required in exceptional quantities

The funding opportunity is outside of the FEC framework however, the Funding Service does not currently capture non-FEC cost headings therefore for this funding opportunity please put all requested costs under the individual ‘Exceptions’ fund headings.

Assessors are not looking for detailed costs or a line-by-line breakdown of all project resources. Overall, they want you to demonstrate how the resources you anticipate needing for your proposed work:

• are comprehensive, appropriate, and justified

• represent the optimal use of resources to achieve the intended outcomes

• maximise potential outcomes and impacts

Ethics and responsible research and innovation (RRI)

Word limit: 250

What are the ethical or RRI implications and issues relating to the proposed work?  If you do not think that the proposed work raises any ethical or RRI issues, explain why.

What the assessors are looking for in your response

Demonstrate that you have identified and evaluated:

• the relevant ethical or responsible research considerations

• how you will manage these considerations

If you are collecting or using data you should identify:

• any legal and ethical considerations of collecting, releasing or storing the data including consent, confidentiality, anonymisation, security and other ethical considerations and, in particular, strategy taken to not preclude further reuse of data

• formal information standards with which study will be compliant

You may demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant. Further details are provided in the Funding Service.

Evaluation plan

Word limit: 400

How will the outputs, outcomes and impacts of the project be captured, evaluated and shared?

What the assessors are looking for in your response

You will need to supply clear evidence of the following:

• a detailed evaluation plan including methodology

• how the evaluation is linked to the STFC PE evaluation framework

• how learning from the proposed activity will be captured and shared

Dissemination plan

Word limit: 400

What the assessors are looking for in your response

You will need to supply clear evidence of the following:

• planning for dissemination of the resources, outcomes, outputs, and so on, to relevant audiences

• how wider audiences could benefit through activities such as sharing good practice or sharing learning

Target audience

Word limit: 100

We expect that projects will focus primarily on audiences based in the UK.

Please show the total number estimated number of people who will be reached within each audience group shown below and express this as a percentage (which must total 100%):

• primary school children

• secondary school children (up to 16 years old)

• 16 to 19 year-olds

• teachers

• general public

• families

• other

If you are targeting a specific subset of the general public not mentioned above, please use the entry for ‘general public’ and specify here (for example gender specific or SEN audiences).

Wonder initiative

Word limit: 300

If appropriate, how will your project engage with the Wonder Initiative* audience and what is the anticipated impact?

What the assessors are looking for in your response

Please provide details of the following:

• evidence of demand

• evidence of how the audience would be reached

• the appropriateness of the activities to the audience

• the potential impact on the audience

*The Wonder Initiative aims to connect people from all backgrounds with our science and technology. Wonder is about giving under-served communities an equal voice by listening, understanding and responding to what people want to know about science and technology.

The Wonder Initiative focuses on working with participants from the 40% most socio-economically deprived areas of the UK, in particular eight to 14 year olds and their families and carers.

STFC programme area

Word limit: 50

Which of the STFC programme areas are relevant to your project?

What the assessors are looking for in your response

Please show the percentage of relevant programme areas and approximate percentages (which must total 100%):

STFC’s remits are:

• astronomy, solar and planetary science

• particle physics

• particle astrophysics

• nuclear physics

• accelerator science

• computational science

Project partners

Add details about any project partners’ contributions. If there are no project partners, you can indicate this on the Funding Service.

A project partner is a collaborating organisation who will have an integral role in the proposed research. This may include direct (cash) or indirect (in-kind) contributions such as expertise, staff time or use of facilities.

Add the following project partner details:

• the organisation name and address (searchable via a drop-down list or enter the organisation’s details manually, as applicable)

• the project partner contact name and email address

• the type of contribution (direct or in-direct) and its monetary value

If a detail is entered incorrectly and you have saved the entry, remove the specific project partner record and re-add it with the correct information.

For audit purposes, UKRI requires formal collaboration agreements to be put in place if an award is made.

Project partners: letters (or emails) of support

Upload a single PDF containing the letters or emails of support from each partner you named in the Project partner section. These should be uploaded in English or Welsh only.

What the assessors are looking for in your response

Enter the words ‘attachment supplied’ in the text box, or if you do not have any project partners enter N/A.  Each letter or email you provide should:

• confirm the partner’s commitment to the project

• clearly explain the value, relevance, and possible benefits of the work to them

• describe any additional value that they bring to the project

• the page limit is two sides A4 per partner

The Funding Service will provide document upload details when you apply. If you do not have any project partners, you will be able to indicate this in the Funding Service.

Ensure you have prior agreement from project partners so that, if you are offered funding, they will support your project as indicated in the Project partners’ section.

For audit purposes, UKRI requires formal collaboration agreements to be put in place if an award is made.

Research and innovation impact

Impact can be defined as the long-term intended or unintended effect research and innovation has on society, economy and the environment; to individuals, organisations, and the wider global population.

Additional disability and accessibility adjustments

UKRI can offer disability and accessibility support for UKRI applicants and grant holders during the application and assessment process if required.

Research disruption due to COVID-19

We recognise that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused major interruptions and disruptions across our communities. We are committed to ensuring that individual applicants and their wider team, including partners and networks, are not penalised for any disruption to their career, such as:

• breaks and delays

• disruptive working patterns and conditions

• the loss of ongoing work

• role changes that may have been caused by the pandemic

Reviewers and panel members will be advised to consider the unequal impacts that COVID-19 related disruption might have had on the capability to deliver and career development of those individuals included in the application. They will be asked to consider the capability of the applicant and their wider team to deliver the research they are proposing.

Where disruptions have occurred, you can highlight this within your application if you wish, but there is no requirement to detail the specific circumstances that caused the disruption.

Get help with your application

If you have a question and the answers aren’t provided on this page

IMPORTANT NOTE: The Helpdesk is committed to helping users of the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Funding Service as effectively and as quickly as possible. In order to manage cases at peak volume times, the Helpdesk will triage and prioritise those queries with an imminent opportunity deadline or a technical issue. Enquiries raised where information is available on the Funding Finder opportunity page and should be understood early in the application process (for example, regarding eligibility or content/remit of an opportunity) will not constitute a priority case and will be addressed as soon as possible.

Contact details

For help and advice on costings and writing your proposal please contact your research office in the first instance, allowing sufficient time for your organisation’s submission process.

For questions related to this specific funding opportunity please contact stfcpublicengagement@stfc.ac.uk

Any queries regarding the system or the submission of applications through the Funding Service should be directed to the helpdesk.

Email: support@funding-service.ukri.org

Phone: 01793 547490

Our phone lines are open:

• Monday to Thursday 8:30am to 5:00pm

• Friday 8:30am to 4:30pm

To help us process queries quicker, we request that users highlight the council and opportunity name in the subject title of their email query, include the application reference number, and refrain from contacting more than one mailbox at a time.

For further information on submitting an application read How applicants use the Funding Service.

Sensitive information

If you or a core team member need to tell us something you wish to remain confidential, email grantspolicy@stfc.ac.uk

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 UKRI’s privacy notice.