Optical Wireless Communications Research and Testing Facility 2026: Up to £7.125 Million for a UK National Facility

Optical Wireless Communications Research and Testing Facility 2026: Up to £7.125 Million for a UK National Facility

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is inviting applications to establish a national research and testing facility for optical wireless communications (OWC). The facility is intended to connect the UK’s existing academic, industrial and government capability with shared experimental infrastructure that can test communications systems in realistic terrestrial, aerial, maritime, underwater and non-terrestrial environments.

This is a single, substantial research-infrastructure opportunity rather than a conventional project grant. EPSRC says the full economic cost of the proposed facility can be up to £7.125 million, with funding for up to 27 months and a fixed start date of 1 January 2027. The council will fund 100% of the full economic cost for the facility and 100% of the full economic cost for associated resources, subject to business-case approval. The application deadline is 15 September 2026 at 4:00 p.m. UK time.

The opportunity is aimed at a UK research organisation that can lead a coordinated national application. A technically impressive laboratory at one institution will not be enough on its own. The official guidance repeatedly emphasizes community engagement, shared access, security, governance, sustainability and long-term operation. Applicants need to show not only that they can build the capability, but also that the wider OWC community needs it and will be able to use it.

Key details

The published funding ceiling is not a guaranteed award. EPSRC says the funding is subject to business-case approval, and the applicant must demonstrate that the proposed costs, delivery plan and operating model are proportionate to the national capability being created.

What the facility is meant to do

Optical wireless communications use light-based links to transmit information without relying solely on conventional radio-frequency systems. In the context of this call, the technology includes optical wireless networking and free-space optical communications across multiple environments. The proposed facility should allow researchers and innovators to examine how systems behave outside a controlled laboratory, where atmospheric turbulence, fog, rain, mobility, handovers, water and changing network conditions affect performance.

The call identifies six objectives. The facility should establish nationally accessible indoor and outdoor experimental infrastructure; quantify and model environmental effects on optical propagation; produce curated data for AI-supported optimization; validate systems at higher technology-readiness levels in at least three operational domains; build sustained public-private partnerships; and define a viable access, business and international-collaboration model beyond the initial award.

Who can apply

The lead organisation must be a UK research organisation with standard eligibility for EPSRC funding. The facility itself must be located in the UK. The applicant team should be community-led and should represent the strongest practical national capability available for the facility. EPSRC encourages the community to self-organise and, where possible, submit one unified consortium application.

The project lead must be resident in the UK and meet one of the published employment or fellowship conditions. They may be employed by the submitting research organisation at lecturer level or above; hold a fixed-term contract that extends beyond the proposed project with the host willing to provide normal permanent-employee support; hold a later-career EPSRC, Royal Society or Royal Academy of Engineering fellowship; or hold another fellowship where EPSRC confirms eligibility case by case. Postdoctoral-level fellowship holders are not eligible to apply for an EPSRC grant.

The call also contains an important nationality restriction. The project lead, project co-lead and every project-team role at application must be held by a citizen of an Alliance Nation listed by EPSRC: Andorra, Australia, Canada, the European Economic Area, Monaco, New Zealand, San Marino, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States or Vatican City. The published conditions also restrict dual nationality where a second nationality is connected to a country on the UK Government’s list of countries subject to trade sanctions, arms embargoes and other trade restrictions. At least one UK national must hold a leadership role.

Security and governance obligations

This investment is part of the UK Integrated Security Fund and the Advanced Connectivity Technologies programme. The facility has to support research and innovation while also contributing to UK sovereign capability, national resilience and economic growth. That makes governance a central part of the proposal, not an administrative appendix.

Members of a recommended award team must undergo Baseline Personnel Security Standard checks, or an equivalent level of screening, before the grant is awarded. The checks cover right to work, identity and nationality, criminal convictions and employment history. Staff appointed later into core operational roles will also need the relevant checks before appointment is confirmed. Some work involving national security and defence stakeholders may require additional security clearance and vetting, although prior clearance is preferred rather than required at the application stage.

The facility should be capable of clear operational compartmentalisation. EPSRC expects it to support open-access work with academia, industry and trusted international partners where appropriate, controlled work with restrictions, and sovereign activities performed independently by appropriately vetted UK personnel. The proposal should explain how these different access modes can coexist without weakening security or making the shared facility unusable.

What the budget can cover

EPSRC expects around £6 million to be costed for the facility and around £1.13 million for associated resources. The grant can support the establishment of a core operational facility, including phased development of permanent ground stations, outdoor free-space optical testbeds, underwater communications facilities and maritime or ship-to-shore links. The application should show how early capability can become operational while leaving room for later expansion through additional partners and co-investment.

Equipment quotes do not have to be included at submission, but the applicant must retain quotes for equipment costing more than £138,000, because EPSRC may request them after the panel stage and before releasing funds. The resources and cost-justification section asks for details of equipment over £25,000, significant staff and travel costs, exceptional consumables, infrastructure, maintenance services, cash contributions and the reasons for choosing particular specifications or manufacturers.

How to apply

Applications must be created in the new UKRI Funding Service, not the Joint Electronic Submissions system. The project lead starts the application, confirms their role, selects or creates the organisation account, and answers the questions in the Funding Service. The draft can be saved and worked on offline, but the lead research organisation is the only organisation that can submit the final application to UKRI.

Before submission, the application goes to the research office for institutional, financial and hosting checks. UKRI advises applicants to leave enough time for the research office to review the read-only version and return it for corrections. The final deadline is not an internal deadline; each institution may set an earlier date. Once submitted, the application cannot be amended. If it is withdrawn before peer review or rejected by the office for substantive errors, it cannot be resubmitted to this opportunity.

The application includes a 550-word plain-English summary, a core-team section, and detailed questions on purpose, vision, approach, sustainability, capability, partners, organisational support, ethics, costs, and facility governance. Most major narrative sections have a 1,650-word limit; the organisation statement allows 2,000 words.

What the assessors will look for

The Purpose response must explain why the facility is timely, what unmet need it addresses, how it meets a national need, and how it complements existing capability. EPSRC specifically asks applicants to compare the proposal with facilities at the host, elsewhere in the UK, overseas and in industry. The case should explain why those alternatives cannot deliver the intended research and testing programme.

The Vision response must connect the facility to high-quality research, training, international importance, stakeholder benefit and the six objectives of the call. It should include a detailed research plan describing the projects supported by the equipment, with enough experimental detail for reviewers to judge the quality of the work. Preliminary results can be included where available.

The Approach response is about operation. It should quantify expected use, describe access and prioritisation, identify delivery risks and mitigations, show how technical staff will be trained, and explain how the host environment contributes to successful use. The facility must be more than a room full of equipment: reviewers need to understand who can access it, how requests are assessed, how conflicts are managed and how external academic and industrial users will be served.

Sustainability covers economic, environmental and social durability. The proposal should identify expected asset lifetime, staffing and maintenance costs, integration with existing UKRI or host services, carbon-reduction considerations, equitable access, cost recovery or additional funding, and the legacy model after UKRI support ends. Team capability should use the UKRI Résumé for Research and Innovation format to show the combined skills of researchers, technicians, managers, specialists and partners.

Materials to prepare before the deadline

Start by mapping the capability to be built, the environments it will test, the users who need it, the data it will produce and the decisions it will enable. Then collect evidence such as prior results, documented demand, user letters, equipment limitations, industry engagement, partner contributions and a commissioning schedule.

The Purpose section permits one PDF containing selective letters from key users. Each letter should explain the value, relevance and possible benefit of the facility to that user, be no more than two pages, and be combined into a single PDF of no more than 8MB. EPSRC encourages letters from a cross-section of key users and specifically asks applicants to include support from relevant EPSRC Future Connectivity Hubs consortium members. These user letters are different from project-partner letters and should not be mixed together.

Project partners may be from industry, academia, the third sector or government in the UK or overseas. Record each contribution and monetary value, then prepare one PDF of support letters or emails. Up to six letters may be included, with no more than two A4 sides per partner, plus a two-side statement on collaboration outcomes and forward plans. Obtain agreement before submission because formal collaboration agreements are required if the award is made.

Common mistakes to avoid

The first mistake is presenting a single-institution equipment purchase as a national facility. The call is designed for shared infrastructure, so a proposal that does not demonstrate broad community demand, access and governance is likely to look fragmented even if its technology is strong.

The second is underestimating security. The Alliance Nation rule, UK leadership requirement, BPSS checks, possible vetting and compartmentalised access model need to appear in the delivery plan. Do not promise unrestricted access to every kind of work if the facility must also support sensitive activity.

The third is treating sustainability as a sentence about future funding. EPSRC wants a working model for staffing, maintenance, access, environmental performance, inclusion and post-award operation. Explain who will keep the facility useful after the 27-month grant and how users will be prioritised.

The fourth is leaving institutional review to the last week. A £7.125 million infrastructure application has cost, governance and security dependencies that research offices need time to check. Build an internal schedule backwards from 15 September and set earlier dates for consortium sign-off, letters, costings, eligibility confirmation and final submission.

Timeline and official next steps

The call opened on 8 July 2026 and closes on 15 September 2026 at 4:00 p.m. UK time. EPSRC expects shortlisted applicants to have five days to respond to reviewer comments. Up to two applications may proceed to an interview panel, with interviews expected in November 2026. The funded award has a fixed start date of 1 January 2027 and a duration of up to 27 months.

Read the complete Optical wireless communications research and testing facility guidance before assembling a consortium. Confirm organisational eligibility through UKRI, discuss costings and institutional deadlines with the research office, and send opportunity-specific questions to future.communications@epsrc.ukri.org. For Funding Service technical issues, use support@funding-service.ukri.org or the helpdesk number listed on the official page.

This opportunity is a fit for a team that can turn recognised UK OWC expertise into a governed, accessible and durable national asset. The application should make that transition visible: show the capability already present, the gap the facility fills, the users who will rely on it, the tests and data it will enable, and the operating model that keeps the infrastructure valuable after the initial award.