Nominet DNS Fund Application
Applications are now open until 17th August 2026 9am BST
1. Eligibility Criteria
- Applications from a formally registered legal entity in its country of operation, and which has a bank account in its registered name are eligible for funding up to £100,000 GBP / financial year (April-March).
- Applicants operating as individuals (not registered entity) are eligible to apply for up to £15,000 GBP / financial year (April-March).
- Applicants must not be based in regimes subject to UK sanctions, and must not be listed on UK, EU, US, or UN sanctions lists, or subject to comprehensive UK security restrictions.
- Current Nominet employees, Nominet Board members, and DNS Fund Advisory Panel members and their immediate families are not eligible to apply for funding.
- The proposed activities must not depend on securing future funding from other sources.
- Applicants should outline their timeline for delivery of key milestones.
2. Application Assessment
Applications will be assessed by the DNS Fund Expert Advisory Panel. This panel will make recommendations to Nominet on which proposals should be funded based on the following principles:
1. Public Benefit
- To what extent your work enables safe, secure and resilient running of critical infrastructure, whose loss or compromise could severely impact society?
2. Core need
- Is there a demonstrable need?
- To what extent does the successful, resilient operation of the global DNS depend on this solution to operate?
3. Deployment pathway
- Does the technology or capability have a clear and credible pathway to deployment?
- Is the proposal coherent and viable in how it will maintain real-world infrastructure or software?
- Will it help maintain, succeed or future proof existing software?
- Can the project demonstrate practical use cases or clear demand?
4. The right people
- Does the person or team have the skills, experience, and understanding needed for this task?
- Do they have a track record of getting similar things done?
- How many contributors are on the project /team and is this sustainable?.
5. Value and sustainability
- Does the proposal represent good value for money, and would the funded activity help ensure long-term sustainability?
Please note: The Fund isn’t designed for stand alone research. We will consider funding hardware if it’s core to DNS operation such as performance testing, but deprioritise general kit. Any training or conference participation should reflect a small percentage of your overall budget.
3. Selection process
We are committed to a transparent and fair selection process. The following stages outline the journey from initial submission to a final funding decision. Please note these dates may be subject to change.
| Date | Application process |
|---|---|
25th June 2026 | Stage 1: Application window opens |
7th July 2026 | Webinar from 15:00 – 16:00 BST, Register to attend now. |
17th August 2026 | Application window closes |
Week commencing 17th August 2026 | Stage 2: Eligibility screening |
24th August 2026 – 11th September 2026 | Stage 3: Selection – Expert Advisory Panel make recommendations |
September 2026 | Applicants informed of outcome |
October 2026 | Stage 4: Contracting with successful applicants including approach to delivery milestones and QA in a Statement of Work |
November 2026 | Stage 5: Delivery begins |
4. Funding opportunity
In 2026, up to £650,000 is available
You can apply for multiyear funding (up to 3 years) but only a limited number of applicants will receive funding for this duration.
We will review your proposal based on the merit and appropriateness of your budget against the project scope. We may award funding for fewer years than your application in consultation with you during the selection period.
The maximum amount we anticipate to formally registered legal entities is £100,000 GBP / financial year (April- March) (£300,000 GBP in total).
Individual maintainers are eligible for up to £15,000 GBP / financial year (April – March).
There is no minimum amount that must be applied for – we know there are lots of important pieces of work that may require smaller amounts of funding, and we will welcome the opportunity to support these. We are aiming to be responsive to the needs of both larger projects and individual maintainers, including those working across multiple projects.
Please indicate any overhead costs that will enable you to deliver your core deliverables. The funding amount will be inclusive of any applicable VAT or other sales taxes. No additional amounts shall be payable in respect of such taxes.
5. Payment
Applicants that reach Stage 4 (i.e. those that have been recommended by the Advisory Panel for funding) will be asked to outline their approach to milestone based delivery and quality assurance (QA). As code is released, and once any proportionate QA has been completed, payments will be made by Nominet.
An anticipated schedule of payments will be agreed with Nominet and reflected in the contract. We will be flexible and supportive if there is good reason to change the schedule.
We will tailor our approach to payments to ensure it’s appropriate to your circumstances, accounting for the scale of funding and activity, and depending on whether you’re working on a single project or making wider contributions. It could be as simple as asking for the URL to a pull request to see proof of work.
6. Licensing Requirements
A core condition of funding is that the outputs of the work benefit the entire community. All source code developed or modified with support from the Fund must be publicly released under a licence approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) or the Free Software Foundation (FSF). This includes popular, permissive licenses like MIT and Apache v2. All documentation must be released under a Creative Commons-style licence.
7. Reporting Requirements
At the beginning and end of your Nominet funded work you will be required to complete a brief reporting form and interview. These will be used to gather qualitative and quantitative information which will help us understand the impact the funding has had on you personally, your work, and the wider ecosystem.
8. Preparing your application
A strong application is clear, concise, and provides the specific evidence the advisory panel needs to evaluate your proposal against the assessment principles. To help you prepare a high-quality submission, this section provides a detailed preview of the questions and structure of our online application form. We strongly recommend drafting your responses offline before beginning the online submission process.
It’s important to note that word counts are provided to guide the maximum length of your answers – they are not a target. We realise you are busy, and if you prefer to submit a concise proposal significantly beneath the maximum word limits this will not count against you, so long as the Advisory Panel has the information they need to make a recommendation against the 5 assessment principles of the fund. Do not feel you have to write 200 words when 20 will suffice.
Please also note that the word counts are “soft” rather than “hard” limits. Please don’t waste lots of time trying to eliminate 10 words here or there to rigidly abide by them.
We recognise that applicants may choose to use AI tools to support the preparation of their application. If you have used AI in any part of your submission, you must ensure that all content has been carefully reviewed. By submitting this application, you confirm that you take full responsibility for the integrity and accuracy of the information provided.
9. Application queries and feedback
We will be hosting a webinar to answer questions for the 2026 funding on 7th July 15:00 – 16:00 BST
Frequently asked questions
Is funding available for diagnostics tools or testing tools?
Yes, as these tools can be crucial to ensuring the health and stability of DNS.
For successful applications, how would the functionality be defined and approved?
We’ll agree on a statement of work that defines deliverables and how they’ll be measured or quality assured before work begins. We’ll meet at the start, during and end of the project to check-in and monitor progress.
Can you apply for funding for the same work through multiple parties?
No, we would not fund the same work you are already funded to do.
Can you have multiple sources of funding on a project?
We recognise that sometimes these types of projects receive funding from different sources. We would not fund activities that another funder is already paying for, however if you require further funding to complement the funding you’re applying for or there are dependencies on other funding sources, we ask that you indicate this in your application.
Can you apply for multiple projects?
Yes, if you’ve got multiple projects in the works, then we welcome this. You can either submit multiple applications or group your projects into one form. Each submitted application is subject to maximum budget per eligibility criteria.
Is the Fund open to international applicants?
Yes, we’re open to applications from both the UK and internationally, subject to a few restrictions such as sanctions.
Is funding available for both long-standing and new projects?
You can apply for funding for existing and new projects, as long as they contribute to the stability of the foundations of the internet through DNS. We will prioritise projects which can evidence demand or use case over new projects. Please note our application principles which emphasise sustainability and contribution to public benefit.
There are a lot of parameters in terms of DNS usage – what is the scope for funding and is there a preference towards a particular area?
We’re most interested in building strong foundations over uses or applications of DNS. We’re focused on making the internet more stable and resilient through DNS, and there are lots of ways to do that. We will be assessing applications on what will have the greatest impact, which will inform the scope or area. For example, if a smaller project addresses a significant risk to the internet, we’d be open to that.
When would the funds be released – in stages or on delivery?
It’s likely we’ll make milestone-based payments. We’ll have a light system of quality assurance (QA) that enables you to pass from one milestone to the next, with some flexibility which will be determined in consultation with successful applicants.
How long does an application take to complete?
We’ve done our best to make the application as quick and easy as possible to complete. It should take around 20 minutes to complete. You can also review the application questions in advance via a downloadable PDF so that you know what to expect upfront before clicking through the online submission form.
Can you apply for general operating support to sustain ongoing maintenance, or does it need to be a specific piece of work?
We’d prefer to focus on supporting specific projects that have a tangible and measurable outcome. That doesn’t mean you can’t request funding for a key piece of maintenance, but it must be a distinct piece of work with real world impact.
What is the ideal price range or maximum amount available for funding?
While we don’t have an ideal price, we have a planned cap at £100,000 (around $135,000 / €115,000). We hope that by having no minimum this opens the opportunity for smaller, leaner projects.
Would funding be available for writing a book or a series of books?
Unfortunately, a long-term project like this is unlikely to be covered under the target time frame or lead to fundamental, foundational change in DNS. Our focus is on funding projects that make a tangible difference and so while it might be a complementary activity, applying for this alone would be out of scope.
Is funding available to purchase hardware for performance and scalability testing?
Funding hardware ,must be justified by its purpose in aiding progress towards the goal of supporting a secure and resilient DNS. Performance or scalability testing is a good example of this. We would need to ensure key questions like maintenance, security and long-term ownership were addressed.
Is funding available for activities like training and conferences?
We wouldn’t want this to form the basis of an application. However, we understand that upskilling the next generation is a big challenge in the DNS space. Therefore, if a small part of the project involved upskilling, then we would consider funding this. Please indicate the relative amounts for training in your application or a breakdown of costs if relevant in the application question on your budget.
What is the ideal recipient for funding?
The most important thing is the project itself. We ultimately want to fund projects that deliver stability in the DNS ecosystem; so, this might include bringing others into a program historically run by one person, or democratising a codebase.
If you have any additional queries or feedback please get in touch with Amy, who will connect you with the most relevant person to answer your enquiry.
Amy O’Donnell
Social Impact Lead, Nominet
Email: dnsfund@nominet.uk