DASA Themed Competition — Biosecurity Frontiers
Funds teams delivering high impact prototypes with milestone support for DASA Themed Competition Biosecurity Frontiers in defense innovation, biotechnology, and synthetic biology.
⚠ This may reflect a past cycle — verify the current call on the funder's site.
Biosecurity Frontiers is a themed competition run by the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) as part of the UK Defence Innovation (UKDI) portfolio, targeting innovations that strengthen the United Kingdom's biosecurity capabilities. DASA launches themed competitions several times per year on behalf of Dstl and other MOD customers, with individual pools typically ranging from £1 million to £1.5 million and per-award values from approximately £100,000 to £300,000. The specific award sizes and pool for this competition were not published in the publicly available competition announcement; applicants must download the full competition document from GOV.UK for exact figures.
The submission deadline for Biosecurity Frontiers is midday BST on 10 June 2026. The competition follows DASA's standard process: proposals are submitted via the DASA Online Submission Service and funded under the Innovation Standard Contract, which is a procurement contract rather than a conventional research grant. Eligible applicants include SMEs, large companies, universities, and research organisations; individuals are not eligible. Foreign nationals may apply subject to research worker clearance, which can take up to six weeks for non-UK entities.
Applicants should download the competition document from the GOV.UK publication page before preparing a bid, as DASA themed competitions specify technical requirements, scope boundaries, and evaluation criteria in detail within the document itself. Organisations operating in biosecurity, synthetic biology, or related life sciences with relevant defence applications are the primary intended applicants. DASA provides webinars and optional one-to-one sessions at competition launch to help applicants scope their proposals.
Biosecurity — specific scope not published in source without detailed competition document.
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