In August 1999, Lord Sainsbury, the Minister for Science, announced on behalf of the DTI, a Government contribution of £5 million pounds to the industrial partners in Beagle 2.

At the same time, he confirmed the allocation by the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council of £2.77 million to the academic institutions to develop the scientific instruments for Beagle 2. The distribution of funding is £1.16M to the Open University, £1.27M to Leicester University and £0.34M to MSSL (UCL).

PPARC have also provided part funding to the Open University for the lander operations planning centre from where the Beagle 2 science will be directed and results analysed and to Leicester University for the lander operations control centre.

In November 2000 the ESA's Space Programme Committee made a contribution of £9M (16M Euros) to Beagle 2. This sum over and above the original projected costs was specifically to allow transfer of some tasks to industrial contractors and to finance an additional test programme to reduce risk.

ESA have provided partial funds to build the Beagle 2 aseptic assembly facility at the Open University where the flight hardware will be assembled.

The Wellcome Trust has awarded £2.6 million to the Open University towards the cost of the miniaturised mass spectrometer for the Beagle 2 lander and to extend and develop the use of the robust robotic instrument for biomedical studies.