The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), through its science in society work, provides grants towards several of the BSA’s projects: British Science Week, the CREST Awards, and the UK Science Festivals Network.

BEIS’ support for British Science Week includes funding the BSA to administer a grants programme for schools in challenging circumstances (the Kick Start grants scheme) and community groups working with under-served audiences (the Community grants scheme).

The Department also supports the British Science Association's (BSA) flagship education programme, the CREST Awards. This includes funding towards the development of Digital CREST – a digital delivery model for the UK’s largest national award scheme for project work in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects.

The CREST Awards are the UK’s largest national award scheme for project work in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects, and works to enrich students' interest in STEM subjects and careers.

BEIS funding also supports a special project targeting disadvantaged schools and pupils who wouldn’t ordinarily have access to STEM enrichment activities – thus opening up access to STEM project work opportunities and important inquiry-based learning skills to thousands of young people, especially those who might not self-identify as being interested in science.

The Industrial Strategy 

"Through our modern Industrial Strategy, we will drive change through the biggest increase in public investment in R&D in our history. We will ensure the UK is the best place for innovators, and through our Grand Challenges we will drive partnerships between the best minds in science and business throughout Britain." Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.

In 2019/20, the BSA will partner with BEIS to undertake a series of interlinked activities aimed at engaging young people in the Industrial Strategy.

These include:

1) The Industrial Strategy Science Fair - which will celebrate young people’s creativity and ideas to tackle topics related to the themes of the Industrial Strategy Grand Challenges. Teams of students from across the UK, who have undertaken STEM projects on topics related to the grand challenges, will be invited to showcase their work at an event in Westminster during British Science Week in March 2019.

2) CREST resources - a new suite of project ideas designed to inspire and support more students to undertake STEM projects on the themes of the Industrial Strategy Grand Challenges: AI and data, clean growth, ageing society and the future of mobility. Available from March 2019, these will be CREST resources, meaning that all young people who develop a project on a topic linked to the Industrial Strategy are eligible to enter for a CREST Award.

3) Youth Industrial Strategy Competition - a new national STEM initiative to reward the best projects by young people, aged 11-to-19, in response to the Industrial Strategy's Grand Challenges.  The competition will launch in March 2019 and be open until November 2019, with Finals taking place in March 2020.