Education and training services

Tender description

UK Shared Business Services Ltd as the Contracting Authority is putting in place a Supporting Next Generation Innovation Policy-making — Pacific Alliance Pilot. The objective of this tender is to identify a contractor capable of designing and delivering a professional development programme pilot — focussed on innovation policy — for policy-makers from the 4 Pacific Alliance countries of Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. What we mean by ‘innovation’: We are focussing on science and technology innovation and the policy environment in place to find and support it. This is in-line with Innovate UK's focus on stimulating and supporting business-led innovation. What we mean by ‘innovation policy’: ‘Innovation policy’ covers a wide range of public interventions that seek to support the generation and diffusion of innovation. It involves increasing the supply of resources of innovation e.g. grants, skills, research and also involves influencing demand to pull innovation through the system and influence markets, e.g. through regulation, standards and using government's purchasing power. Government interventions in support of innovation can be at the level of activity, firm/organisation, sector or market, and the interactions between these levels. In addition to operating at many different levels, improving support for innovation typically cuts across different policy areas, meaning that it has a particular emphasis on improving ‘horizontal’ coordination and systemic interaction. Who we mean by ‘innovation policy-makers’: An innovation policy-maker for the purposes of this activity has been identified as: 1) A person responsible for or involved in formulating public policies which seek to support innovation — whether through seeking to improve supply, demand, connection or direction of policy; 2) A person who leads or manages the deployment and implementation of major government programmes which are designed to foster innovation. The focus of this activity will be innovation policy-makers at different levels of government in 4 Pacific Alliance countries, from the main/core ministries or agencies of innovation policy. These tend to be business or economy, finance, science and higher education and their associated agencies. 2 types of activity are to be designed and delivered by the contractor: 1. An in-depth targeted professional development programme for innovation leaders (the top tiers of policy-makers). The key facets of this course are that it should include: — Cross-system cohorts from each country; — Hands-on, practical problem-solving; — Taught content from leading experts; — Immersive experiences in UK; — Peer mentoring and expert coaching. 2. A capacity building programme, to be designed to reach a larger number of policy-makers (most likely at the programme manager level) in a cost-effective manner. Innovate UK recognises that we are not able to provide intensive professional development to all those who want or need it. We therefore need to deploy a capacity building/professional development approach that enables wide reach in a cost-effective manner and — critically — builds up the ability of partner countries to take care of their own professional development needs going forward. Particular targets for this activity are likely to include: — Those joining an innovation agency, as part of an induction or orientation process and needing overviews, examples and a sense of the range of global best practice; — Those looking to practically implement policies, programmes and initiatives generated by senior policy-makers who have completed the leadership development programme.