Creating Innovation Collaboration Resources for Science and

Innovation Network officers

Call for Expressions of Interest

Background

The Government understands the key role of science and innovation in

rebalancing the economy. For this reason they lie at the heart of the UK’s strategy
for sustainable growth and prosperity. The UK is already a world leader in science
and research; using the measure of citations as a proportion of GDP, the UK is the
strongest performer in the G8. International collaboration gives us the opportunity
to build and capitalise on this strength, creating links to other centres of excellence
in both the developed world and emerging economies, drawing in new ideas from
around the world and stimulating innovative thinking.

Strong, collaborative science and innovation play an equally important role in

underpinning the evidence-based international policy dialogues we need in order
to successfully tackle global challenges such as food security and climate change.
It is for these reasons that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS)
and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) jointly fund a network of Science
and Innovation Officers around the world. The network supports the priorities of
both BIS and the FCO, and its business planning process ensures that it remains
responsive to the needs of the UK.

The network is able to identify and deliver opportunities, bring insight to UK

policymakers and exert influence around the world. SIN promotes strategic
partnerships between UK and international science and innovation communities to
enhance research, business and policy interests.

Our Science and Innovation officers are based in Embassies, High Commissions
and Consulates around the world. We have around 90 staff in 25 countries and
territories. This network enables us to understand the local science and innovation
landscape and, when combined with our knowledge of the UK, gives us a unique
position.

The work of the network is guided by the following objectives:

Influence
1
 Science & innovation policies of governments, businesses and academia
influenced to benefit the UK through lobbying and deployment of robust
scientific evidence.

 UK policy development informed through identifying good practice

internationally
Opportunity
1
 International science collaboration of best with best facilitated to the benefit of
the UK

 International innovation collaboration facilitated to augment UK

capabilities.

Historically much of their focus has been on promoting and facilitating science
collaboration but we are looking for them to give a greater focus on the fourth
objective: innovation collaboration (ie collaborations with a stronger
industry/business aspect) and policy influence in relation to innovation. This is a
complex new area that involves them taking on new relationships and working
more closely with UKTI. It also requires them to develop a greater understanding
of international business, global value chains and the nature of collaboration where
it involves industrial partners. Being able to articulate clearly where the SIN role
differs from that of UKTI and how they can work together will be particularly
important.

SIN officers are a mixture of civil servants on temporary (3 year) postings from UK-
based or other diplomatic postings and others who are permanently based in a
country but who are recruited from the local population. The background of these
officers varies considerably, although many have a strong science background.

This requires the team to be supported in taking on this new role and proposals are
invited for the development of resources that will help with this.

Key Objectives

Aims

There is already considerable activity going on relating to innovation, with some

good practice and useful lessons emerging from this. It will be key to capture this
and enable others to draw on the experiences by turning this knowledge into a
systematic form that people can draw on as well as creating suitable case studies.

The team in BIS Innovation Directorate has engaged in policy development in this
area, based on their own experience and literature review, that would be a useful
resource, when combined with the more practical experience the teams have on
the ground.

SIN officers represent an investment of taxpayers money and their time needs to
deliver maximum value to the UK. The opportunities to support innovation
collaboration and policy influence can yield high value business outcomes for the
partners involved but, conversely, businesses can devote considerable amount of
their resource to international activity which may end up having little impact or
value.

Key outcomes we hope to see from this work include:

 Accelerated induction and equipping of new SIN officers so that less time is
spent coaching or developing them into their role;
 Events and missions that involve the SIN can be planned more rapidly and
have a higher success rate through officers being able to draw on and get ideas
from a wide range of previous effective practice so that participants are
effectively selected, prepared and engaged leading to strong partnerships.
 SIN officers are better able to influence foreign policy makers to adopt open
approaches to innovation that mirror those of the UK and create opportunities
for UK collaboration.
 SIN officers are better able to promote the UK innovation landscape and
encourage foreign parties to engage and consider collaborations/investments
because they can see the value for themselves.
 SIN officers work more effectively alongside UKTI and there are fewer
instances of SIN officers getting unhelpfully conflicted with their activities.

As a result, we would expect to see SIN officers being able to increase the range
of positive outcomes they can achieve leading to more collaborations and greater
value flowing into the UK economy.

The requirement is, therefore, to engage with the SIN officers and others with
knowledge and experience in this area, to draw out key approaches and
frameworks that are effective and tacit or published knowledge that could provide
useful background understanding for the SIN officers, and convert this into useful
material and resources to provide a toolkit.

As such, the focus is on creating documents that can be available on-line but are
also suitable for printing out and using in training/briefing/discussion sessions.

Some of the materials will be tools, presentations, etc. that can be used by the SIN
officers when they are participating in meetings, etc.

There are parallel projects led by UKTI and others that are creating resources with
overlapping aims and we will work with the Contractor to avoid duplication and
enable useful raw material/data to be made available to support the development
of the SIN toolkit.

It is important to note that SIN officers operate in very different environments and,
as far as possible, the material needs to be relevant to those in China, India,
Berlin, Brazil, US, New Zealand, … This points to flexibility and avoiding an
attempt to prescribe practice but more to provide resources that can be drawn on
where the SIN officer feels they are appropriate.

It would also be very useful if the material were suitable for Regional Managers to
use in training new staff.

Objectives

The contractor will be expected to develop the materials by February 2014

including sharing near final versions at a major conference in December
2013 bringing together all the SIN officers in London. Following consultation with
the SIN Regional Managers we expect the materials to have the following focus:

 Pointers to existing resources and materials available on the Internet that cannot
readily be accessed through conventional Google searches including material
developed by UKTI, Intellectual Property Office, BIS, etc..
 Practical material about concrete actions and approaches that are known to be
effective and are linked to clear positive outcomes for the UK.
 Material that will stimulate creative approaches and foster the development of new
fit-for purpose workshop and other vehicles while building on lessons learnt from
previous case studies.
 Practical guidance on the different roles that SIN officers can take in helping to
facilitate international innovation collaboration highlighting practical points, skills
needed and linking to other resources that could support these.
 Practical guidance on resources that can be useful – partners, sources of funding,
organisations – with commentary on the kind of role they can play and the issues
that can be faced in working with them.
 Material about the UK innovation landscape where there is a particular need that is
not being addressed by other projects – with the aim of helping SIN officers to
communicate the UK’s strengths and to help potential collaborators find partners.

A budget of £50,000 has been allocated for this work.

Provisional Timescales

Closing date for expressions of interest 2/8/2013

Invitation to tender issued 9/8/2013
Closing date for tenders 16/9/2013
Notification of outcome of tender review 23/9/2013

Requirements

We would welcome expressions of interest from individuals, organisations, or

consortia, outlining their suitability for the project in no more than 750 words by
11am on 2/8/2013.

Expressions of interest will be assessed using the following criteria, using a scale
of 1 (Excellent level of evidence) to 5 (Little or no evidence):

1. Access to materials that would be relevant as background resources and

could provide some of the introductory content.
2. Experience of providing useful material to equip people in practical work,
including working with a target user group to understand their practice and
needs.
3. Understanding of innovation, collaboration and international aspects of
these including how businesses and academics develop international
strategies and partnerships.
4. Ability to convert complex material into clear, concise, well structured
material.
 5. Ability to deliver products to time and a high quality, reflecting a good
understanding of what customers/users need.

A different set of criteria will be used to assess the eventual tenders.

Your expression of interest should be emailed as an attachment in MS Word

format to rcukssc.sourcing@ssc.rcuk.ac.uk with the subject line of the email
the reference number P2130071BIS.

Please address any queries to Nick Rousseau at nick.rousseau@bis.gsi.gov.uk.