Nucleus Public Engagement Awards 2026 (Closed): STFC Funding and Application Guide

This page is a historical reference for the Nucleus Public Engagement Awards 2026 call. The official opportunity page, run by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) through UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), marks the call Closed. It opened on 12 January 2026 at 9:00am UK time and closed on 31 March 2026 at 4:00pm UK time. UKRI states that applicants could not apply after the closing time. Do not treat this page as an active application route.

The official STFC public-engagement funding overview continues to describe a Nucleus Award programme, but it does not announce a dated next Nucleus round. That means there is no verified replacement deadline to put in this page’s metadata. Keep the closed cycle’s real date in the deadline field, and use the official opportunity page or the STFC public engagement team for any future announcement.

At a glance

The award range and the FEC ceiling describe different parts of the same funding model. STFC would fund a maximum of £100,000 for an individual proposal. A research organisation subject to the Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC) could request a project with a full economic cost of up to £125,000, with STFC paying 80% of that cost. A non-TRAC organisation could request up to £100,000 under the exceptions heading and receive 100% funding. The official page also lists a total fund of £200,000, so the scheme was not an uncapped source of funding for every eligible proposal.

What the call was for

Nucleus was intended for substantial public-engagement programmes connected to STFC-supported science, technology or facilities. A proposal could focus on engaging the public, raising public-engagement capacity in an STFC-focused community, or combining both aims in one coherent programme. STFC expected applicants to show a clear and demonstrable link to its remit rather than presenting a general science-communication project with an incidental connection to physics or astronomy.

The 2026 call listed these STFC areas:

• astronomy, solar and planetary science
• particle physics and particle astrophysics
• nuclear physics
• accelerator science
• computational science
• quantum technologies

The connection could be to the STFC-funded science programme or to the science and technology work of STFC national and international laboratories and facilities. The applicant had to explain where the science sat within that remit in the response about the applicant and team’s capability to deliver.

The call also allowed community-network and capacity-building work to be the sole purpose of a Nucleus proposal. That could include developing practice among people who deliver public engagement with STFC science, building partnerships, or strengthening an institution’s ability to involve the public. A combined proposal needed to show how the engagement activities and the capacity-building or network work formed one programme, not a list of unrelated activities.

STFC highlighted its Wonder Initiative. The initiative seeks audience-driven engagement with under-served communities, especially people aged eight to 14 and their families or carers in the 40% most socio-economically deprived areas of the UK. Applicants could choose their audiences and methods, but the proposal needed to explain them. STFC also encouraged work with audiences considered to have low science capital. This was an area of interest, not a rule that every applicant had to target one particular age group.

The call did not support a project whose only purpose was writing and publishing books or novels. A book could be an output of a wider public-engagement programme, but the wider programme had to carry the engagement rationale and activity.

Who was eligible

The host organisation had to be based in the UK and have audited accounts. If the applicant’s organisation could not receive funding under that condition, the applicant needed to work with a partner organisation that could hold the award. Organisations outside the UK were not eligible to apply as host institutions.

The official page described a broad applicant group. Examples included grant-funded researchers, early career researchers, STFC scientists, technicians and engineers, facility users, schools, museums, science communicators, universities, colleges, community interest companies and libraries. The principal applicant had to be eligible to apply on behalf of the organisation that would hold the award. The list was not a promise that an individual could apply independently; the host-organisation and principal-applicant conditions still applied.

Every application had to include a subject matter expert, or SME, in an STFC-funded area of science or technology. The SME could contribute directly to delivery, but that was not mandatory. STFC allowed the person to act as an adviser on the scientific content. A strong application therefore needed to name the relevant expertise, explain its connection to the proposed work, and show how the expert’s contribution would keep the public-facing activity scientifically sound.

The programme was not restricted to universities. Schools, museums, libraries and community interest companies were among the examples on the official page. However, a non-standard applicant still needed an eligible UK host with audited accounts where required. The public-engagement idea, the STFC link and the delivery team all had to fit together.

Funding and project boundaries

Projects had to last at least 24 months and no more than 36 months. The official guidance says applications with a start date earlier than 1 September 2026 were ineligible. It also excludes retrospective funding, including projects with a start date after the closing date but before funding decisions were announced. Those restrictions matter when reading the archived 2026 deadline: the funding window was not permission to start activity whenever convenient.

The scheme used full economic costing. Eligible examples included contributions to salaries, materials, and travel and subsistence. There was no capital budget, so applicants could not request funds under the equipment heading. The call also excluded hardware or equipment over an individual value of £25,000, infrastructure or building construction and maintenance, international conference costs, and contingency funds.

STFC would not support a programme where the target audiences were primarily outside the UK, or where the project would clearly go ahead without STFC support. For applicants from or for schools, formal education programmes were excluded, as were trips to CERN or other laboratories, observatories and science venues unless they were intrinsic to a wider public-engagement project. Projects involving only a single school were also excluded.

These conditions point to the kind of case the call sought: a sustained programme with a defined UK audience, an STFC science connection, a credible delivery team and a reason why STFC support was necessary. They also show why a budget should have separated ordinary programme costs from disallowed capital, infrastructure or contingency requests.

How the 2026 application worked

The call used the new UKRI Funding Service. Applicants could not apply through the Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S) system. The project lead was responsible for completing the application, while UKRI expected team members and project partners to contribute. Only the lead research organisation could submit the completed application to UKRI.

The official sequence was:

1. Select Start application near the beginning of the UKRI Funding Finder page.
2. Confirm that you are the project lead.
3. Sign in or create a Funding Service account, select the organisation, verify the email address and set a password. If the organisation was not listed, the applicant had to email support@funding-service.ukri.org. UKRI advised allowing at least 10 working days for a new organisation to be added.
4. Answer the application questions in the Funding Service. Applicants could save answers and return later, or work offline and paste the answers into the service. Where the service requested a document, applicants had to follow its upload instructions.
5. Check the application in read-only view before sending it to the research office.
6. Send the completed application to the research office for checking. The office could return it for edits.
7. The research office submitted the checked application to UKRI.

The page warned that the application could not be changed after submission and that UKRI would not amend a submitted application. Applicants therefore needed enough time for their host organisation’s internal review before 31 March 2026 at 4:00pm UK time. The archived date is not a new or extended deadline.

Application questions and evidence

The Funding Service asked for a plain-English summary with a 550-word limit. The summary was used to identify suitable assessors and could be made public, so it was not the place for confidential information. It needed to explain the context, challenge, aims and objectives, potential applications and benefits of the proposed work.

The main questions covered the following areas:

• Vision, with a 750-word limit: what the programme hoped to achieve, why it mattered, how it connected to the STFC Public Engagement Strategy, who the beneficiaries were, and what local, regional or national effects could follow.
• Approach, with a 750-word limit: the planned engagement, capacity-building or network activities, the target audiences, the methods for reaching and retaining them, evidence of audience demand, and learning from earlier work or sector practice.
• Applicant and team capability to deliver, with a 1,000-word limit: relevant experience, the balance of skills, leadership and management, development of others, working environment, and the team’s ability to deliver the STFC-linked programme.
• Resources and cost justification, with a 750-word limit: project staff, travel and subsistence, unusual or exceptional consumables, Exceptions costs, accessibility-related adjustments, and why the resources represented a sensible use of funds.
• Ethics and responsible research and innovation, with a 500-word limit: ethical issues in the subject and delivery model, effects on people and communities, data handling, consent, confidentiality, security, and safeguards for children, young people or vulnerable adults where relevant.
• Evaluation plan, with a 750-word limit: methods for capturing outputs, outcomes and impacts, the connection to the STFC public-engagement evaluation framework, and how learning would be shared.
• Dissemination plan, with a 750-word limit: how resources, outcomes and learning would reach relevant audiences and how wider communities could benefit from the work.

The application could include a single PDF with evidence of audience demand if that evidence applied to the proposed work. The Funding Service provided the upload details. Applicants could also use visual form to demonstrate relevant elements of their responses, but images needed captions, had to be inserted on separate lines and had to meet the service’s file rules. Images could not replace paragraphs or tables, and excessive quantities were not permitted.

What a strong archived application would have shown

The assessment framework rewarded a connected argument rather than a collection of attractive activities. The vision needed to establish why the work was needed and how it advanced STFC’s public-engagement aims. The approach then had to identify the audience, show evidence of demand and explain why the methods suited that audience. A programme aimed at eight-to-14-year-olds in deprived areas, for example, would need to show how those communities shaped the work and how the applicant could reach them; naming the audience alone would not be enough.

The team section needed to make the SME role meaningful. A scientific adviser who only appeared in a name list would provide less confidence than a clear account of where their expertise informed content, training, safeguarding or interpretation. The resources answer needed to connect requested staff time, travel, materials and evaluation to specific activities and intended outcomes. It also needed to respect the equipment and infrastructure exclusions.

Evaluation was a central requirement. The application had to explain how outputs, outcomes and impacts would be captured and evaluated, then link that plan to STFC’s public-engagement evaluation framework. A useful plan would distinguish what the team would deliver from what audiences might learn, feel, do or contribute, and would explain how the team would use findings during the 24-to-36-month project. The official guidance also said evaluation costs could be included in the budget.

Ethics and responsible innovation were not limited to laboratory research. A public-engagement programme might involve children, young people, vulnerable adults, sensitive stories, audience data, photographs or online participation. The application needed to explain consent, confidentiality, data storage, security and any other relevant safeguards. It also needed to consider the wider social, environmental and economic effects of the proposed work.

Contact and future checking

For questions about the specific opportunity, the official page gave stfcpublicengagement@stfc.ac.uk. Questions about Funding Service access or submission went to support@funding-service.ukri.org, with the telephone helpdesk listed as 01793 547490. Applicants were advised to contact their research office first for costings and application-writing support.

Because the 2026 call is closed and no dated next Nucleus round is announced on the current STFC public-engagement overview, future applicants should not copy the 2026 deadline into a new application. Check the official UKRI opportunity page and STFC public-engagement funding page for a new round, revised eligibility terms, award limits, start-date rules and application-service instructions. The 2026 figures and process on this page describe the completed cycle only.