Business and management consultancy and related services

Tender description

UKRI's Innovate UK intends to procure the services of a supplier who can design and deliver an acceleration and development programme in South Africa. The objective is to build partnerships between innovative UK SMEs and South African organisations, with the aim of co-creating base-of-the-pyramid business models for their products and services. We are calling this activity the Scaling Out for Impact (SOFI) Programme. This procurement will form part of Innovate UK's delivery partner commitment to the Newton Fund. The Newton Fund (www.newtonfund.ac.uk) is part of the UK’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) and aims to promote the economic development and social welfare of partner countries, by strengthening their science and innovation capacity through partnership with UK businesses and academia. UKRI Innovate UK is the UK Government's innovation agency. They fund, support and connect innovative businesses to accelerate sustainable economic growth. Innovate UK provide new support for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) with high growth potential to innovate faster and achieve growth, not just in the UK but globally. As part of its international activities Innovate UK is a delivery partner of the Newton Fund. The Newton Fund is part of the UK’s Official Development Assistance and aims to promote the economic development and social welfare of partner countries, by strengthening their science and innovation capacity through partnership with UK businesses and academia. Innovate UK seeks to identify a supplier who can design and deliver a programme to accelerate the development of South Africa through building partnerships between innovative UK SMEs and suitable South African organisations, with the aim of co-creating base-of-the-pyramid (BOP) business models for their products and services. This contract will be for an approximately 18 month programme to act as the Delivery Partner for Innovate UK activities to help innovative, impact-driven businesses in Development-relevant sectors, (e.g. sanitation, health, sustainable mobility, access to finance, sustainable energy, edtech, access to broadband) address development challenges in South Africa through building new collaborative ventures in partnership with local organisations. The activities will be known as the SOFI Programme and are anticipated to comprise of running two iterations of the programme between the start of the contract and the end of FY 20/21. This will include managing a network of Programme alumni companies to track the growth of their South Africa projects and the impacts they are achieving and providing light touch support where it is likely to make a significant difference. At the heart of each iteration of SOFI, will be a week-long visit to South Africa by up to 15 UK SMEs to rapidly build their networks, know-how and key partnerships as they seek to develop and scale innovations in a collaborative and inclusive way. Places on the programme will be competitive and applicants must demonstrate an impact-oriented mindset, a strong team and offer a product or service which could be adapted and scaled through a BOP approach, and which is relevant to South Africa. Through the support of appropriate sponsors the programme should build and maintain a network comprising programme alumni companies, promising UK SMEs with the potential to be future programme participants, relevant South African organisations, and programme stakeholders such as sponsors, advisors, impact investors and journalists. This prior information notice is being issued in order for innovate UK to understand market appetite for the opportunity. If you believe this will be of interest to you or your organisation, please register an expression of interest by sending an e mail to the following email address: majorprojects@uksbs.co.uk Expressions of interest should be received on the above email address no later than 12.00 BST on 11.10.2019 (the EOI Deadline). The email should have the subject heading ‘UK SBS PR19091 UKRI Innovate UK Newton Fund SOFI Programme Delivery PIN EOI’. For the avoidance of doubt, this notice is not a call for competition; a contract notice will be issued as a call for competition. Not registering an interest shall not prevent any supplier participating in a future procurement, nor is it intended that any information supplied as part of preliminary market consultation shall place any supplier at an advantage in a potential procurement process. UKRI Innovate UK reserves the right not to award a contract. Future procurements — advanced notification on intent: if the UK exits the EU and access to the OJEU is no longer afforded to the contracting authority, then all new procurements will utilise the UK Governments own procurement portal.