Published date: 22 November 2019

Last edited date: 22 November 2019

Closed early engagement


Closing date: 8 November 2019

Contract summary

Industry

  • Computer-related services - 72500000

Location of contract

North West

Procurement reference

BB009

Published date

22 November 2019

Closing date

8 November 2019

Contract is suitable for SMEs?

Yes

Contract is suitable for VCSEs?

Yes

Description

This notice is not an invitation for formal expressions of interest. The purpose is to commence a pre-procurement market awareness before the start of a formal procurement process (for which a separate contract notice will be issued).

UK Biobank is an international resource for health research with 500,000 participants and offers access to researchers seeking to understand the determinants of disease. The resource will likely comprise over 15 Petabytes of health-related data by 2025.

To date, UK Biobank has provided data to approved researchers by way of download. The scale of these increasingly large and complex datasets, which make up UK Biobank, will mean that it is no longer tenable to use this download model. This will require the development of a new managed service 'informatics platform' to enable researchers to access and analyse the UK Biobank data.

UK Biobank considers that the development of this platform will happen in stages. In the first instance, it is seeking to appoint a supplier to implement the first phase of UK Biobank's project delivery plan - scheduled provisionally for Q1/Q2 2020 - for a managed informatics platform to provide secure access to certain of the different types of UK Biobank data via discrete project spaces that allow a range of analytical tools to be utilised. Subsequently, UK Biobank intends to explore the available options, including that the provision of the platform and the underlying storage are a) bifurcated and b) provided by multiple providers.

This notice is not an invitation for formal expressions of interest. The purpose is to commence a pre-procurement market awareness phase before the start of a formal procurement process (for which a separate contract notice will be issued). This market engagement phase will take the form of UK Biobank issuing a document that outlines its considerations for provision of a managed informatics platform for access to its data, accompanied by a set of questions against which it would welcome feedback from potential suppliers. In addition, as part of this exercise, UK Biobank will hold one-to-one meetings undertaken by video conference, on Tuesday 12th November, and which will provide an opportunity for UK Biobank to consult with and receive feedback from potential suppliers. The background information to UK Biobank and its prospective procurement is being made available with this Prior Information Notice, along with the specific questions to which UK Biobank now invites advance written responses from potential suppliers.

More information

Attachments

Additional text

The format for the market awareness phase with potential suppliers is as follows:
• Information is being made available to all potential suppliers and accompanies this Prior Information Notice. This includes an overview document providing the background to UK Biobank and its strategy together with its considerations for the service required and a set of questions from UK Biobank. (This document can also be found at the following hyperlink https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/managed-informatics-platform/).
• Potential suppliers are invited to respond to the questions and may then express an interest in scheduling a one-to-one video conference with senior UK Biobank staff, on Tuesday 12th November. This video conference will address any questions for UK Biobank from the overview material and then UK Biobank will address the set of questions to the potential supplier.
• Appointments will be allocated in slots and their length will be determined by the number of potential suppliers who express an interest. Suppliers will be informed of the final arrangements prior to the event.
If you have responded to the questions and wish to register your interest in scheduling an individual video conference appointment, please contact Andrea Howard at andrea.howard@ukbiobank.ac.uk with names and job titles of delegates no later than 12noon UK on Friday 8th November. Please note numbers are limited to 2 delegates per potential supplier. Individual video conference appointments will only be offered to potential suppliers who respond to the questions. The video conference meetings may be recorded.

After the market awareness phase, UK Biobank will make available a synopsis of the feedback received, without attributing any response to any particular potential supplier.

UK Biobank anticipates considerable interest in this procurement and as such will not respond to queries outside of the process above. Please note that this notice is not a tender notice, no pre-qualification questionnaire or invitation to tender documents are available and no expressions of interest are being accepted at this time. The email address above must only be used to provide written responses to the questions and register for the one-to-one video conferences and for no other reasons.

Further to the market awareness events outlined in this PIN, UK Biobank may undertake additional market engagement activity in the future, but this is not guaranteed. UK Biobank is not obliged to commence any procurement following this PIN, and it is not liable for any costs or loss of expense of any market operator in relation to this PIN or procurement that is commenced.

About the buyer

Contact name

Andrea Howard

Address

Unit 1-2, Spectrum Way
STOCKPORT
SK30SA
England

Telephone

0161 475 5386

Email

andrea.howard@ukbiobank.ac.uk