Before the formation of the UK Space Agency, the three principal funders of space activity were the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and the Technology Strategy Board (TSB). Other government departments contributed smaller amounts to the programme.
Before the creation of a UK Space Agency, the partners of the British National Space Centre (BNSC) retained responsibility for their own budgets. Under the new structure the UK Space Agency will manage all the European Space Agency subscriptions.
By bringing together the different sources of space funding, the UK Space Agency will be able to make better use of the existing money for the UK civil space programme by improving levels of coordination.
Other funding is flexible and covers areas such as administration costs, and education and outreach programmes.
As an indication of the level and focus of UK space funding, below are details of the source and allocation of space funding over the past 9 years.
Sources of space funding (£ million)
* DIUS, BERR and DCSF were created from DTI and DfES on 28 June 2007, the figure in column 07/08 and 08/09, shows the DIUS contribution. DIUS was merged into BIS in 2009.
** STFC was formed from the merger of PPARC and CCLRC on 1 April 2007.
Spending by subject area (£ million)
In addition, the UK nominally contributes 12% of the EU Framework Programme. Preliminary figures for the first two calls of the EU FP7 space thematic priority indicate that UK organisations are likely to receive 25.23 M€ out of the total expenditure of 196.78 M€.
