OSCT RA Grant competition - Understanding, Preventing and Responding to Cyber Crime

The Office for Security and Counter Terrorism Research and Analysis (OSCTRA) in the Home Office is launching an open grant competition for academic-led research and evaluation projects on cyber crime.

The contracting authority will be inviting research bids to help build the evidence base on the following key research themes: - Cyber Prevent - understanding cyber offenders, the risk factors for offending, and offending pathways - for overseas as well as UK-based offenders; evaluating the effectiveness of interventions to prevent people becoming involved in cyber crime and interventions to divert those on an offending pathway.

- Cyber Protect - developing and testing interventions to improve cyber security behaviours amongst the public and businesses; evaluating interventions and determining measures of long term changes to behaviour.

- Future technological developments and policing of cyber crime - understanding effective approaches to tackling cyber crime at the national, regional and local level; understanding how future technological changes may enable crime, and how technology may also be used by law enforcement to tackle cyber crime.

The contracting authority will welcome academic-led proposals with collaborative, multi-disciplinary approaches, employing any appropriate and justified methodological techniques. Proposals either focused on single sub questions within the themes, or those looking to address multiple questions within the themes will be equally welcome.

This grant competition is the final phase of a research programme commissioned by the Home Office, via funding from the National Cyber Security Programme (NCSP). The research programme has funded both multi-year research projects and shorter-term research, aiming to help expand academic research in relation to cyber crime.

New projects will be required to start after the beginning of April 2020 and complete by 31st March 2021.

A maximum of £400,000 will be available. The number and nature of projects funded will depend upon the proposals received.

Accessing further details:

The full grant call will open on Wednesday 29 January 2020 and close by Monday 2 March 2020.

In order to submit a proposal, bidders MUST be registered on the government's Esourcing website and submit an expression of interest to the OSCTRA commercial team in advance of the opening date of Wednesday , 29 January 2020. Fuller details of the grant competition and evaluation criteria will only be accessible via the Esourcing suite to those who have registered by this date.

Please note registration on the Esourcing suite is a relatively speedy process and should not be confused with registration as a supplier on the Research Marketplace of the Crown Commercial Services' (CCS) Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS), which is a different process. Details of next steps and how to register your interest are laid out in the 'How to Apply' section below.

Additional information: How to apply section:1. Only bidders registered on the government's Escourcing website and who have registered their interest with the OSCTRA commercial team by the launch date of 29 January 2020 will be able to access full details of the grant competition and be invited to competition. Bidders who confirm their interest after the date of launch will not be able to be added to the competition.2. For bidders not already registered on Emptoris, self-registration on the ESourcing site involves completion of a short form: https://gpsesourcing.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/srm-app/ux/selfreg.html#/self-reg/ Two or more working days should be allowed for confirmation of registration.It is possible your university may already be registered with Emptoris. If this is the case and any difficulties are faced in self-registration, please contact your organisation's SAM (Supplier Admin Manager), so that you can be registered as a new User for your organisation. Alternatively, if you do not know the identity of your SAM and are having difficulties with self-registration, please contact the OSCTRA commercial team at [email protected] who will be able to provide further assistance3. In addition to registering on Emptoris, interest MUST also be registered directly with the commercial team. Email: [email protected] with the following information, no later than 26 January 2020: - Organisation name - Contact name, contact number and email address- Organisation address- Confirmation that you are registered on Emptoris or if you require information to enable you to register. 4. Some bidders may envisage submitting a grant proposal that involves evaluation of existing law enforcement activity, access to law enforcement data, or collaboration with law enforcement or government agencies to test new ideas or interventions. In such cases, there will be an opportunity to ask clarification questions via the Emptoris system once the competition is live. This will give all bidders an equal opportunity to discuss the feasibility of such proposals and allow them to be put in touch with appropriate agencies should assistance be needed. To note, Home Office cannot guarantee the sharing of data or information held by third parties5. The competition will then be open to all bidders who have registered on Emptoris AND registered their interest with the OSCTRA commercial team. The competition will be open from 29 January 2020 until 2 March 2020. Proposals will need to be submitted during this timeframe.