FOSTER Programme Industry PhD Support Scheme 2025
Buyer: UK Atomic Energy Authority →
What is being bought
The Fusion Opportunities in Skills, Training, Education and Research (FOSTER) programme is an ambitious national fusion skills programme delivered by UKAEA on behalf of the UK fusion sector. FOSTER's mission is to train over 2000 people by 2030, ready to take roles within the fusion industry.
Categories
Comparable-procurement analytics
Benchmarked against retained Find a Tender procedures with CPV division 73. The category anchor is Research services (73110000); this is a deliberately broad market comparator. The comparison is shown at several levels rather than pretending one company or region is always the best benchmark.
| Comparison set | Procedures | Reported bids per procedure | Named award suppliers | Price evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market: CPV division 73 | 867 | 2.5 median · 48.1 average (144 of 867 with a bid count) | 3.3 average (157 of 867 with named award suppliers) | Not published |
| Same buyer | 0 | Not published | Not published | Not published |
“Reported bids” is an official aggregate, sometimes reported per lot; it is the closest available competition measure. “Named award suppliers” are winners, not all applicants.
Price-outcome signal
Not enough comparable procedures currently publish both a GBP tender value and a usable lowest-valid-bid value to calculate a responsible price-reduction benchmark. Tenderline deliberately does not infer a saving from named award suppliers or from missing award values.
Procurement strategy & market signals
Planning & early market engagement
No planning milestones published.
Related procurements
No linked framework, prior procurement or reprocurement published.
Documents & submission route
No documents are published in the current source record.
Source data inventory
Diagnostic view. “Not published” means this current release does not provide a value.
| OCID | ocds-h6vhtk-05921a |
|---|---|
| Latest release ID | 053444-2025 |
| Latest release timestamp | Wed Sep 03 2025 09:59:06 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) |
| Source | find-a-tender |
| Official notice URL | Not published |
| Tender status | Not published |
| Procurement method | Not published |
| Procurement method details | Not published |
| Main procurement category | services |
| Above threshold | Not published |
| Legal basis | 32014L0024 |
| Tender period: start | Not published |
| Tender period: end | Not published |
| Expression of interest deadline | Not published |
| Enquiry deadline | Not published |
| Award period: start | Not published |
| Award period: end | Not published |
| Submission method details | Not published |
| Submission languages | Not published |
| Electronic catalogue policy | Not published |
| Total tender value | Not published |
| Tender lots in source | 0 |
| Tender items in source | 0 |
| Tender documents in source | 0 |
| Awards in latest release | 0 |
| Contracts in latest release | 0 |
| Parties in latest release | 1 |
Notice history
| Date | Event | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| 3 Sept 2025 | tenderUpdate | 053444-2025 |
| 2 Sept 2025 | planning | 053134-2025 |
All source data
Unmodified official OCDS data retained by Tenderline for this procurement process.
Complete current OCDS release JSON
{
"id": "053444-2025",
"tag": [
"tenderUpdate"
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"date": "2025-09-03T10:59:06+01:00",
"ocid": "ocds-h6vhtk-05921a",
"buyer": {
"id": "GB-FTS-159727",
"name": "UK Atomic Energy Authority"
},
"tender": {
"id": "T/GW99/25",
"title": "FOSTER Programme Industry PhD Support Scheme 2025",
"amendments": [
{
"id": "1",
"description": "This notice was originally uploaded as a PCR15 PIN. It was intended to be a PA23 PME notice. Please ignore this notice and refer to the correct notice with OCID ocds-h6vhtk-0592c0 Notice Identifier : 2025/S 000-053368 for information on this opportunity.",
"unstructuredChanges": [
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},
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"legalBasis": {
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"scheme": "CELEX"
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"description": "The Fusion Opportunities in Skills, Training, Education and Research (FOSTER) programme is an ambitious national fusion skills programme delivered by UKAEA on behalf of the UK fusion sector. FOSTER's mission is to train over 2000 people by 2030, ready to take roles within the fusion industry.",
"classification": {
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"postalCode": "OX14 3DB",
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"streetAddress": "Culham Science Centre"
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"language": "en",
"initiationType": "tender"
}Complete JSON history (2 releases)
3 Sept 2025 · 053444-2025 · tenderUpdate
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"title": "FOSTER Programme Industry PhD Support Scheme 2025",
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"description": "This notice was originally uploaded as a PCR15 PIN. It was intended to be a PA23 PME notice. Please ignore this notice and refer to the correct notice with OCID ocds-h6vhtk-0592c0 Notice Identifier : 2025/S 000-053368 for information on this opportunity.",
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}2 Sept 2025 · 053134-2025 · planning
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"lots": [
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"id": "1",
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"description": "The Fusion Opportunities in Skills, Training, Education and Research (FOSTER) programme is an ambitious national fusion skills programme delivered by UKAEA on behalf of the UK fusion sector. FOSTER’s mission is to train over 2000 people by 2030, ready to take roles within the fusion industry. The intention is to work with universities, businesses, and international partners to increase the number of apprentice and graduate, postgraduate and doctoral, and post-doctoral opportunities within the fusion skills ecosystem in the UK. One mechanism being used to support an increase in PhD numbers is through the FOSTER Programme’s Industry PhD Support Scheme Awards. These Awards will contribute a fixed sum towards the cost of a fusion related PhD in a UK university that commences by 31st December 2026. There are two tiers of award values available under this initiative: 2 awards of £65,000 are designated specifically for small businesses (less than 50 full-time employees), while the remaining awards are valued at £40,000 and are open to all eligible applicants. The application form must detail the full cost of the project and show how the remaining balance of funding will be provided. PhD topics should be beneficial to the wider UK fusion sector i.e. not only relevant to one specific fusion device. PhD projects that are already underway, as collaborations between a university and an industry partner, but experiencing existential financial difficulties may also be proposed for consideration."
}
],
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