Increasing Collaboration Between SMEs and Challenge Owners in Belfast

Connected Places Catapult is seeking to increase SME involvement in providing innovative solutions to public sector problems. We will be running a pilot process from the beginning of January 2022 to identify a selection of roughly 6 to 9 SMEs who will be asked to provide a solution to a challenge put forward by a Belfast local government department or Belfast based large organisation. There will be roughly 3 challenge owners with 1 challenge each as part of this process, we are looking to identify an organisation that can improve collaboration between SMEs and Challenge Owners and provide upskilling support and mentoring to these stakeholders. For the SME community, the objective is to enable them to run a scalable and robust business and articulate their proposals in a compelling and engaging manner to Executives and Senior Leaders. For the Challenge Owners, the requirements are aligned to supporting them to work in collaboration with the SME and provide guidance to the SME to enable their product to meet the requirements of the challenge. We are expecting to identify 3 challenges as part of the programme, and the supplier will also be expected to identify and select the SMEs to take part in the programme.

Requirements • Identify and select Belfast-based SMEs to take part in the upskilling programme (6 to 9 SMEs in total) relevant to address 1 or up to 3 different urban challenges. • Providing a 4 - 6-week upskilling programme. • Providing a location for the upskilling to take place in Belfast.

Supplier profile: • Business Upskilling / Coaching Business with experience in SMEs and challenge owners. • Based in Belfast, ideally within the Innovation District • Have access to Belfast based SMEs in various sectors to facilitate market engagement to respond to our challenges. If interested, please register on link below if not already registered and Express an Interest on this project and you will be able to download the tender documents: https://procontract.due-north.com/Register

Additional information: If interested, please register on link below if not already registered and Express an Interest on this project and you will be able to download the tender documents: https://procontract.due-north.com/Register