UK SBS PS150219 Space Mission

Innovate UK is the UK’s innovation agency. Its goal is to accelerate economic growth by stimulating and supporting business-led innovation. Innovate UK is a government agency, based in Swindon and sponsored by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). Innovate UK brings together business, research and the public sector, supporting and accelerating the development of innovative products and services to meet market needs, tackle major societal challenges and help build the future economy. It delivers its objectives through a series of programmes, in which businesses are encouraged to participate in, such as Collaborative Research & Development, Smart, and Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, and, in order to help businesses internationally, Entrepreneur Missions. This specification relates solely to the Entrepreneur Missions programme. Innovate UK supports events known as ‘Entrepreneur Missions', run in partnership with UKTI, Catapults and private sector partners, in which a selected group of innovative and often early-stage UK companies are given intensive support to get them ready to travel to countries strong in innovation and enterprise, such as the US, Brazil or India.

The number of Entrepreneur Missions run by Innovate UK is currently small – 3 to 4 every year. As a result, the organisation has decided not to manage Entrepreneur Missions out of core resources, but to contract out the preparation and project management of the missions and logistical support before, during and after, the missions.

Each mission is therefore delivered in partnership with a private sector contractor to provide this expertise. The aim of the current tender, therefore, is to procure the services of a private sector provider to support the next Entrepreneur Mission in the Space sector, to the US market in November 2015.

The main objective of this and all other Entrepreneur Missions is to grow the participating businesses through early internationalisation.

Specific objectives are for the mission companies to

Additional information: As part of the strategic alliance between UK Shared Business Services Ltd (UK SBS) and Crown Commercial Service (CCS), UK SBS can use the CCS eSourcing Suite for future procurements.

If you have not yet registered on the eSourcing Suite, this can be done online at https://gpsesourcing.cabinetoffice.gov.uk by following the link ‘Register for CCS eSourcing’. Please note that, to register, you must have a valid DUNS number (as provided by Dun and Bradstreet) for the organisation which you are registering, who will be entering into a contract if invited to do so.

Once you have registered on the eSourcing Suite, a registered user can express an interest for a specific procurement. This is done by emailing expressionofinterest@crowncommercial.gov.uk.

Your email must clearly state: the name and reference for the procurement you wish to register for; the name of the registered Bidder; and the name and contact details for the registered individual sending the email.

Crown Commercial Service will process the email and then enable the Bidder to access the procurement online via the e-Sourcing Suite. The registered user will receive a notification email to alert them once this has been done.

The Sourcing documents can then be accessed on the eSourcing Suite at: https://gpsesourcing.cabinetoffice.gov.uk using the instructions detailed in the Specification documents within Contracts Finder.

As a user of the e-Sourcing Suite you will have access to Emptoris email messaging service which facilitates all messages sent to you and from you in relation to any specific RFX event. Please note it is your responsibility to access these emails on a regular basis to ensure you have sight of all relevant information.

For technical assistance on use of the e-Sourcing Suite please contact Crown Commercial Service Helpdesk : Telephone: 0345 010 3503

Training documents to support Bidders utilise Emptoris CCS eSourcing are available in the Contracts Finder Tender documents section.