Scientific breakthroughs alone won’t lead to impact, this is why we’re embedding science entrepreneurship into all that we do – from how we recruit our Programme Directors to our funding terms.
We’re now looking for Activation Partners to help catalyse entrepreneurial talent and venture creation across our opportunity spaces.
Activation Partners will unlock latent ideas, empower talent, support new ventures, and provide insights and connectivity across our opportunity spaces.
Success will be about more than just deliverables, partners will work alongside us to foster a culture of innovation that propels our opportunity spaces, and therefore the UK, towards massive social and economic impact.
What we’re looking for
We don’t have preconceptions about the types of organisation we’ll work with or highly structured plans for what they’ll do – the shape of these partnerships will be driven by the creativity, imagination, instincts and experience of our selected partners.
You can be a nonprofit, startup, fellowship programme, deeptech investor, incubator/accelerator, venture creator, or something else entirely. Above all, we’re looking for partners with a deeply technical focus, an appetite for the highly speculative and a commitment to operating as founder and scientist friendly.
Please contact clarifications@aria.org.uk for accessible versions of these documents.
We are accepting initial proposals until 29 May (14:00 BST)
Before submitting your proposal, please read the request for proposal.
Organisations shortlisted based on initial proposals will be invited to discuss and refine their approach before submitting a full proposal. Details on how to submit a full proposal will be added to this page ahead of the call for them opening on 8 July. Applicants will be able to submit a full proposal even if they did not submit an initial proposal or are not shortlisted for discussion.
If you have any questions relating to this call, please email clarifications@aria.org.uk.
Any questions or responses containing information relevant to all applicants will be published on our website here.
The contents of the RFP are confidential and must not be not copied, reproduced, distributed or passed to any other person at any time except for the purpose of enabling the bidder to submit a proposal. ARIA may use the information included in a bidder’s response for any reasonable purpose connected with this RFP. ARIA will process any personal data contained within your submission for the purposes of assessing the submission in accordance with its privacy notice here. In particular, once a bidder has been excluded, ARIA reserves the right to use any ideas contained in that bidder’s proposal in any ongoing discussions with other bidders but undertakes not to reveal the identity of the provider of these ideas. No publicity regarding the subject-matter of this RFP or the award of any Contract will be permitted unless and until ARIA has given express written consent to the relevant communication.
ARIA reserves the right to: a) waive or change the requirements of this RFP from time to time without prior (or any) notice being given by ARIA, in the event ARIA makes material changes to this RFP, ARIA may choose to extend the deadline for submission. b) reject any bidder that does not submit a compliant Proposal in accordance with the instructions in this RFP. c) disqualify any bidder that is guilty of serious misrepresentation in relation to its Proposal, d) withdraw this RFP at any time, or to re-invite Bidders on the same or any alternative basis; e) choose not to award any Contract as a result of the current procurement process; and f) make whatever changes it sees fit to the Timetable, structure or content of the procurement process, depending on approvals processes or for any other reason. ARIA will not be liable for any bidder’s costs, expenditure, work or effort incurred by them in carrying out enquiries in relation to, proceeding with, or participating in, this RFP, sourcing process or procurement, including if the procurement process is terminated or amended by ARIA.
Suppliers are expected to adhere to the Government’s supplier Code of Conduct. This is available here.
Any attempt by bidders or their advisors to influence the contract award process in any way may result in the Bidder being disqualified. Specifically, bidders shall not directly or indirectly, at any time: a) enter into any agreement or arrangement with any other person as to the form or content of any other Proposal, or offer to pay any sum of money or valuable consideration to any person to effect changes to the form or content of any other Proposal; b) enter into any agreement or arrangement with any other person that has the effect of prohibiting or excluding that person from submitting a Proposal; c) canvass ARIA or any employees or agents of ARIA in relation to this sourcing process; or d) attempt to obtain information from any of the employees or agents of ARIA or their advisors concerning another bidder or proposal. Bidders are responsible for ensuring that no conflicts of interest exist between the bidder and its advisors, and ARIA and its advisors. Any Bidder who fails to comply with this requirement may be disqualified from the procurement at the discretion of ARIA.
Bidders recognise and accept that it will be at ARIA’s sole discretion as to which, if any, proposal is accepted.