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We are jointly commissioning a project with UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the Wellcome Trust to bring stakeholders from the research and innovation community together to reflect on the impact of concordats and agreements.
In March 2022, we launched the findings from Phase 1 of this project. Phase 2 aims to look at the insight from Phase 1 on the coverage, adoption and influence of concordats and agreements. It also aims to explore how the agreements can be aligned in the future to increase influence, capacity, and efficiency in UK research cultures and environments.
Invitation to tender
Informed by the work so far, we are commissioning a series of activities which will do the following:
- Bring together updated insights on the agreements and concordats to explore solutions for increased influence, capacity, and efficiency.
- Run workshops to help stakeholders and representatives of the community to reflect on these insights, pulling out themes, challenges, and opportunity areas.
- Run workshops to explore these areas of opportunity and challenges, agreeing on possible future scenarios, generating ideas and to explore potential solutions for increased influence, capacity, and efficiency, taking a systems view.
- Work in collaboration with the community and stakeholders involved in agreements and concordats to refine potential solutions, and co-design a roadmap to deliver these activities.
If you think your organisation would be suitable for this tender, we would love to hear from you.
Invitation to tender
Phase 2
Submission
Please return one email copy of your response in English to: Daniel Wake, Policy Manager at Universities UK, at daniel.wake@universitiesuk.ac.uk
An email copy of tender documents should arrive no later than Friday 6 May 2022 at 12 noon.
We have the right to disqualify any candidates who submit incomplete or late tenders.
Shortlisted applications are likely to be invited to a telephone or video interview during the week of Monday 16 May 2022.
Questions
If you have any questions on the tender, please email Daniel Wake, Policy Manager at Universities UK at daniel.wake@universitiesuk.ac.uk
You will receive a response to the email account used to raise the question. All questions and answers will also be published on this page.
With the extension to the deadline, will there be an extension to the overall timelines?
Yes, we will extend the overall timeless by two weeks, but with room for additional flexibility.
It would be helpful to understand the drivers for timelines and budget.
The budget is based on similar projects that project board have commissioned and/or been involved with. We have developed the timescales so that initiative owners / the wider research community can start to implement actions from autumn onwards, which will help support to the outcomes of key activities in this space, such as the Research Bureaucracy review. Running some of the sessions/engagements online may help minimise costs and barriers while maximising engagement across diverse stakeholders.
Would you be able to provide some guidance on the indicative numbers of stakeholders you would expect to engage in the workshops?
Although we do not have a set number of stakeholders in mind, page 16 of the phase one report outlined how previous research involved engagement with:
- the initiative owners
- those in strategic influencer and operational delivery roles at higher education institutions and research institutes
- other members of staff across higher education institutions and an independent research organization.
The project also convened a challenge group to advise the project. The group included researchers from different parts of the system and at different career stages, research managers and professional services staff, and experienced analysts.
This phase two project does not have to follow a similar approach, and we welcome suggestions about how many stakeholders you think is appropriate. The invitation to tender document notes that we would also be interested in how other stakeholders such as industry, the public and third sectors and global partners might be engaged.
I am affiliated with the research and innovation community and will be subcontracted to provide expert input as part of the application, what is your advice?
You will need to declare your conflict of interest. Where there is a direct conflict of interest you will need to show how you will manage trust and relationship with other stakeholders to ensure impartiality to authentically facilitate the project with the initiative owners.