Higher education services

Tender description

The MoD, Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) has unique requirements for its naval architects to deliver safe and effective warships and submarines on behalf of the Royal Navy, and requires an accredited MSC and submarine design course. Warships are different to other shipping in that they are more complex in terms of their military capabilities, their systems and the levels of integration. MOD’s Naval Architects deliver safe and effective ships and submarines to the RN. MOD is placing a 24-month ctt with UCL to provide an MSc course in Naval Architecture in 2019/2020 for 7 students and Submarine Design Course for 10. MSc courses are RINA and IMarEST accredited. MOD’s requirements for NavArchs are unique, not met by standard commercial courses in UK/EU. Only UCL offers Submarine Design Course. Warships are complex military assets. The ship/sub design element, uses a legacy database, a valuable resource for the course. The MoD/Ind/ UCL db cannot be passed to another provider. MOD embeds eng staff to manage and deliver courses to maintain accreditation (1 Professor of NavArch, 1 Senior Lecturer, 2 Research Assistants). MOD may compete future provision of this service; an RFI was issued in Feb19 to find other providers, and to obtain market knowledge to potentially reshape training. The 2-4 year interim ctt period allows for possible competing and lead time for a new provider to develop and advertise new courses.