Interim Report
Photo by Andrei Armiagov/Adobe Stock
The UK Space Agency’s National Space Innovation Programme (NSIP) provides co-funding to support the development of innovations with high potential to catalyse investment into the UK space sector. This evaluation, conducted in parallel with an impact and economic evaluation by know.space, seeks to assess the benefits of NSIP.
This report represents the first public deliverable released as part of this multi-year evaluation. It provides interim findings covering the NSIP Pilot and Call 1, as well as the programme’s predecessor the Emerging Technologies Programme (ETP).
This study’s approach is designed such that the evaluation is undertaken alongside the ongoing delivery of NSIP, while enabling analyses of insights from past funding calls. To meet these specific needs, a modified real-time evaluation (RTE) approach has been adopted to collect real-time process data on the performance of NSIP and rapidly feed recommendations for improvement back to the UK Space Agency programme managers. They, in turn, can then make improvements either as processes are running or in time for the next call.
We sought to answer six evaluation questions:
Our headline result is that NSIP is a well-run and continuously improving programme, viewed positively by those who have received support via its multiple funding mechanisms. NSIP has expanded its scope and impact since its pilot phase, supporting a diverse range of project themes and achieving a balanced distribution across National Space Strategy (NSS) technology topics. Recent calls have enhanced geographical and organisational diversity, with smaller and medium-sized organisations finding success. Previous evidence (i.e. NSIP Call 1 survey) suggests applicants are generally happy with the process of applying and the guidance available. The demand for the programme is healthy, with 500 submitted proposals resulting in 94 awards (18.8% success rate) across eight open calls, indicating a highly competitive programme compared to UKRI success rates (~25%).
Feedback suggests a few key challenges in participating in NSIP, such as the need for better application feedback, supporting applicants to develop more comprehensive business cases, clearer guidance on financial reporting, longer proposal development timelines and mitigation of delays in project progression. Despite these issues, most applicants express willingness to reapply, and feedback is largely positive, suggesting that those barriers are not significantly discouraging applicants or project leads.
While applications generally exhibit high technical quality, they often lack comprehensive business cases. The assessment process is hindered by the high density of information, making thorough evaluations challenging within the available timeframe. Small and new companies face difficulties meeting application demands. Applicants have highlighted barriers such as the insufficient six-week turnaround for proposal development, specifically for the consortium building requirement. Further, applicants expressed dissatisfaction with financial reporting requirements, indicating a need for more flexibility and clearer guidance. Nonetheless, the willingness of most survey respondents to reapply for NSIP funding suggests that these issues, while significant, are not insurmountable barriers.
Lessons learned from NSIP application process have also been used to improve the assessment approach across the UK Space Agency, demonstrating the UK Space Agency’s resolve in standardising and improving Agency-wide processes.
As the current slate of NSIP projects - Kick Starter (KS) and Major Projects (MP) Call 1 - progresses and concludes, this report will be supplemented by further evaluation reports of KS and MP projects, including additional interviews with programme teams. These reports will be delivered after project completion, targeting late 2025 for KS and early 2027 for MPs.
