Computer-related services

Tender description

As part of 100 000 Genome Project, Genomics England Ltd (‘Genomics England’) established a secure research environment targeting the following outcomes: — beneficial clinical outcomes for patients, — reduction in the systemic cost of care, — new scientific insights and discovery, — accelerating the uptake of genomic medicine in the National Health Service (‘NHS’), — stimulating and enhancing UK industry and investment, — increasing public knowledge and support for genomic medicine. With sights now set on 5 000 000 genomes in 5 years, Genomics England has been reviewing its strategic approach to deliver and operate a next-generation Trusted Research Environment (‘TRE’). To date Genomics England has relied primarily on internal resourcing to maintain the research environment. Moving forward Genomics England seeks to establish a strategic partnership (‘the Partnership’) that invests in, delivers, develops and maintains a secure, easy to use and collaborative TRE. Genomics England is looking for a strategic partner to help develop a TRE using innovative commercial and funding models designed using open and transparent interaction. The goal of the TRE is to enable benefits to patients, healthcare professionals and researchers. It is our expectation that potential partners will be able invest resource and assets in the co-development of the TRE, in a way that is sustainable for them over time. It is not expected that a traditional buyer and supplier contracting relationship will meet the strategic direction envisaged, therefore, the perceived benefits to potential partners will be explored to ensure long term viability of the TRE partnership. In order to derive the greatest benefit from the strategic partnership in terms of the TRE delivery and viability it is likely that a partnership agreement of 5 to 10 years would be required, maybe in different forms. Genomics England are looking for a single partner in the delivery of the TRE and are open to discuss various proposals as to the structure of the strategic relationship. The business driver: The design, development and operation of the TRE are driven by its objective to provide a secure and collaborative workspace that enables researchers and industry to perform genomic data analysis to accelerate scientific discovery for the benefit of patients. Scope: The scope of the project is to partner with an organisation to deliver and operationalise a TRE that includes: — a unified data platform containing datastores appropriate for all the required clinical and genomic data types, — data integration capability to deliver analytics-ready datasets into domain-specific data stores across batch and streaming integration patterns, — standards-based access services providing secure, fast, flexible and robust access to TRE data assets, — applications to support the research user journey from an exploration of data sets, through cohort building, analysis and publication — providing tools appropriate to a variety of user requirements (ways of working) and programming competency. Objectives: The primary objective of the TRE is: ‘an intuitive, integrated and collaborative user experience, ensuring user satisfaction and engagement; providing a user experience that supports the journey of a wide range of research personas, with various levels of technical competency.’ Deliverables: Key deliverables of the project are: Technology 1) Software and infrastructure that meet functional, security, governance, capacity and performance requirements of the TRE; 2) Technology providing the usability, availability, accessibility, flexibility, interoperability and scalability required by both academic and commercial users. Policy and Process: 3) Solutions that drive a standardised approach to data governance, consent practices, data release and other relevant policies and processes; 4) Solutions that enable effective management of data quality; 5) Policies and processes that enable users to work securely, efficiently and effectively in the research environment; 6) Tools and processes that tightly control transfers into and out of the environment. People: 1) Staff appropriately skilled to implement, maintain and support the required research environment. 2) Documentation and training necessary to ensure Genomics England has the skills and knowledge required to maintain the environment. Further information relating to the strategic partnership and outcome can be downloaded within our eTendering portal https://genomicsengland.bravosolution.co.uk where interested potential partners can register interest. All information provided in this notice and the accompanying information on the eTendering portal represents current Genomics England thinking and is subject to change. This PIN was not prepared as a call for competition. The call for competition opportunity will be issued through a formal contract notice.