UKDI Security Open Call: How Stage 1 and Stage 2 Work

The UKDI Security Open Call is a two-stage competition run by UK Defence Innovation (UKDI, the successor to DASA). Stage 1 is a 900-word overview that is checked pass or fail against six scope criteria. Only some Stage 1 proposers are invited to write a full Stage 2 proposal of roughly 9,000 words. Awards are up to £350,000 per project, and the whole call is aimed at security problems set by government departments, not general defence R&D.

Everything below comes from the Cycle 2 competition document on GOV.UK (updated 6 October 2026) unless stated otherwise, and reflects what was published as of 6 November 2026. Competition documents change between cycles, so check the live page before you commit time.

Where the call stands today

The Security Open Call is described as a "multi-cycle competition". GOV.UK's launch announcement of 3 August 2026 says Cycle 1 ran from 3 to 27 August 2026, "with additional cycles planned throughout 2026 and 2027". Cycle 2 timings, from its competition document:

So if you did not submit a Stage 1 proposal by 29 October, Cycle 2 is closed to you. I could not find a published date for the next cycle on GOV.UK or Innovate UK Business Connect, whose listing repeats only the "2026 and 2027" wording. Some third-party listings give Stage 1 opening dates in January, March and May 2027. Treat those as unconfirmed until UKDI publishes a competition document.

The useful way to spend the gap is to prepare. The Stage 1 form is short, but what it asks for takes weeks to establish.

What Stage 1 asks for

Stage 1 is capped at 900 words in total, split across four sections, with no embedded images or references:

• Strategic Fit: 200 words. How you align to a named challenge area, with evidence, and how you differ from current solutions.
• Security Compatibility: 300 words. The security impact at the end of the project and after exploitation.
• Exploitation beyond the Project Plan: 250 words. Route to market, time to commercialisation and partners.
• Project Delivery: 150 words. Start and end TRL, duration, outputs, the main technical risk and any government-furnished items you would need.

The proposal must also flag legal and ethical issues such as MODREC, RIPA and data protection. With only 150 words for delivery, you cannot explain a weak plan; you can only state a clear one.

The pre-sift: six ways to be excluded before anyone reads your idea

Before assessment, Stage 1 proposals go through a pass or fail sift. The document states that failure against any single criterion excludes the proposal. The criteria for Cycle 2 are:

1. The proposal comes from a UK-based organisation, with work done in the UK.
2. Only one focus area is selected.
3. The proposal shows how it aligns to a challenge area within scope.
4. The innovation delivers at no lower than TRL 6 and no higher than TRL 7 at the end of the project.
5. The project lasts 12 months or less from the start (longer allowances apply to the testing and trialling options).
6. You have not exceeded the limit of three Stage 1 proposals per cycle. Anything over the limit is sifted out in the order received.

Two of these catch deep-tech teams out. The TRL band is narrow: a TRL 4 technology that needs a year of development to reach TRL 6 may be fine, but one that would only reach TRL 5, or one that is already a finished product, falls outside it. Our guide to technology readiness levels explains how to place your own work honestly. And the one-focus-area rule means a technology relevant to two departments needs two separate Stage 1 proposals, counted against the limit of three.

UKDI also says it may use a UKDI-approved AI tool for pre-sift, with a human making the final determination. That is a reason to keep the alignment statements explicit rather than implied.

What is in scope in Cycle 2

Each proposal addresses one focus area. Cycle 2 has three: Home Office (five challenge areas, including secure information sharing, online harms and cyber or hybrid threats), the National Protective Security Authority (ten challenge areas, including vehicle screening, crowd screening and detection of hostile reconnaissance) and the Department for Transport's NSSR (five areas, including aviation hold baggage screening and freight explosives detection). The Innovate UK Business Connect listing notes that future cycles may reflect "the priorities of different or additional government stakeholders", so the list will not necessarily carry over.

The document also names what it does not want: duplicates of running UKDI competitions, off-the-shelf demonstrations with no experimental development, literature reviews or consultancy, and solutions with no realistic route to outcompeting existing ones. The expectation is a realistic prospect of impact within two years of project completion.

Stage 2: what changes

Stage 2 is by invitation, and the title and abstract must match Stage 1. The introduction states about 9,000 words, while the section caps add up to 9,500 (Desirability 2,250 plus 750 for exploitation, Feasibility 3,000, Viability 3,000, Testing and Trialling 500). That inconsistency is in the source, so confirm the limits in the submission service. Proposals are assessed on Desirability, Feasibility and Viability, and the document warns that assessors may not have seen your Stage 1 text, so Stage 2 must stand alone.

It requires detailed project, financial and resourcing plans, a final milestone payment tied to a written report, and a list of any other government funding in the area. Innovators do not attend the Decision Conference. Stage 1 unsuccessful applicants receive a statement of outcome only; Stage 2 applicants get bullet-point feedback.

Terms you accept before you win anything

Awards are made under the Innovation Standard Contract, and the document requires "unqualified acceptance" of the terms and conditions. Successful bidders must also pass a Supplier Assurance Questionnaire under the Cyber Security Model before award, and may need a Cyber Implementation Plan. You will need a D-U-N-S number and GOV.UK One Login. Abstracts and titles may be shared with other government partners and the Ideas Marketplace. If your intellectual property position or investor terms make any of this uncomfortable, read the contract before writing a word of Stage 1.

Should you apply?

Probably yes if all of these hold:

• Your technology maps directly to a named challenge area, in a sentence you could say without hedging.
• You can credibly reach TRL 6 or 7 within 12 months for £350,000 or less (£150,000 and six months for testing and trialling only, which must start at TRL 6).
• You can accept the Innovation Standard Contract and the cyber assurance steps.
• You have a route to a buyer within two years. The call funds demonstrators, not research.

Probably not if your technology is general-purpose and you are stretching to fit a challenge area, if you are at TRL 3 or 4 with a long road to TRL 6, or if you want funding mainly to build a product that exists already. The Home Office, NPSA and DfT are buyers with specific problems. A proposal that reads as a general capability pitch tends to fail the alignment test, and a failed pre-sift criterion costs you the entire attempt. If your work is defence rather than security, our piece on defence funding routes beyond DASA compares the alternatives, and our explainer on the move from DASA to UKDI covers the wider landscape.

The Innovation Outline step, described in the document as recommended, is worth using. It is not a Stage 1 application, but it is a low-cost way to test alignment with UKDI before the window opens. Questions go to the UKDI Help Centre, and UKDI says it cannot guarantee a reply to queries received within two weeks of the Stage 1 deadline.

Where GrantHero fits

I should be plain about our position. Our pricing page lists Defence among sectors still to come, and we go deepest on Innovate UK, so UKDI is not a call where we claim a track record. What we can do is the part that decides whether to apply: Discovery is free and scores live competitions against your company and R&D goals, with eligibility questions checked one at a time. For a bid you decide to pursue, the Review package is £1,500 and Full Support is from £2,500, each with a 3% success fee as shown on the pricing page on 6 November 2026. Ask on the scoping call whether a UKDI proposal is within what we can support. If it is not, we will say so, and that is more useful to you than an application that fails the pre-sift.