Nucleus Public Engagement Awards 2026 in Swindon

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.

Almost anyone can apply for a Nucleus award, including:

• grant funded researchers
• early career researchers
• STFC scientists, technicians and engineers
• facility users
• 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.

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 support for people with caring responsibilities for UKRI applicants and grant holders during the application and assessment process.

It is essential that proposals demonstrate clear links to the STFC remit 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 astrophysics
• nuclear physics
• accelerator science
• computational science

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 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.

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.

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 STFC public engagement strategy. 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 STFC evaluation framework.

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 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.

What we will not fund:

• 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

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.

To apply:

• Select ‘Start application’ near the beginning of this Funding finder page.
• Confirm you are the project lead.
• 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 to request addition.

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.

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. Allow enough time to check your application in ‘read-only’ view before sending to your research office. Send the completed application to your research office for checking. They will return it to you if it needs editing. 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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sensitive information:

If you or a core team member need to tell us something you wish to remain confidential, email us with 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

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.

Publication of outcomes:

STFC, as part of UKRI, will publish the outcomes of this funding opportunity. If your application is successful, we will publish some personal information on the UKRI website.

Summary:

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: the public, the wider research community.

Core team:

List the key members of your team and assign them roles from the following: project lead (PL), specialist, professional enabling staff. Only list one individual as project lead. The project lead must be from the organisation that is applying for the award.