UK SBS CR20040 Transforming Foundation Industries - Evaluation

**Please note this is not a call for competition** This is a PIN notice for an event for the UK Research and Innovation who have a requirement for Transforming Foundation Industries - Evaluation The UKRI Board are committed to collecting evidence to understand the impacts of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) Transforming Foundation Industries Challenge (TFI). The Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) is part of the Government's Industrial Strategy, the long-term plan to raise productivity and earning power in the UK.

The fund is a core pillar in the government's commitment to increase funding in research and development by £4.7 billion over 4 years to strengthen UK science and business. It is focused on investing in the world-leading research base and highly-innovative businesses to address the biggest industrial and societal challenges today.

The ISCF aims to improve the performance of our whole science and innovation system and is essential to realise the R&D ambitions of the Industrial Strategy. Transforming Foundation Industries challenge aims to help make the UK's foundation industries (composed of the glass, metals, cement, ceramics, chemicals and paper industries): • remain internationally competitive, securing regional, highly skilled jobs and underpinning our high value manufacturing supply chain; and • minimise the environmental impact of the largest industrial polluter.

UKRI is seeking to commission an independent process and impact evaluation of the Transforming Foundation Industries Challenge. There are four key aims of this piece of work: 1) Deliver an evaluation framework that sets out the intended approach to evaluation in detail 2) Provide Baseline data for current activity within the foundation industries against the evaluation framework metrics 3) Evaluate the impact of the challenge on the industry against its objectives within the lifetime of the challenge as well as in the longer term. 4) Determine to what extent the TFI programme design and delivery mechanisms has contributed to achieving the objectives of the challenge.

The expected maximum budget for the evaluation is £400,000. We expect to go out to tender in March 2020.

We would like to invite prospective bidders to attend a pre-market engagement session on Monday 23rd March at 10.00am - 1.00pm at Future Cities Catapult 1 Sekforde St, Farringdon, London EC1R 0BE. Agenda: • Introduction • Overview of the programme • Evaluation expectations • Procurement Overview • Coffee break • Q&A • Supplier Engagement Event Close and Next Steps Additional information: A pre-market engagement session will be held on Monday 23rd March at 10.00am - 1.00pm at Future Cities Catapult 1 Sekforde St, Farringdon, London EC1R 0BE.

This will provide an opportunity for potential providers to find out more about the aims of the procurement and the process. Providers wishing to attend need to RSVP by Friday 20th March 2020 at 14.00 stating their name, title, email and phone numbers- please note there is a restriction of 2 attendees per organisation. It is anticipated that the tender documentation will be released in March