---
title: "Commercial Innovation Hub"
ocid: "ocds-h6vhtk-06badf"
canonical_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-h6vhtk-06badf"
markdown_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-06badf.md"
json_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-06badf.json"
source: "Find A Tender Service"
current_stage: "Planning"
buyer: "DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY"
published: "2026-06-23"
---

# Commercial Innovation Hub

Buyer: DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY  
Current stage: Planning  
OCID: ocds-h6vhtk-06badf

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## Summary

The Department for Science, Innovation & Technology is in the planning stage of a procurement process for developing a "Commercial Innovation Hub". This initiative aims at fostering innovation in public sector procurement by establishing a digital pre-procurement environment. The industry category for this tender includes services with a focus on research, experimental development, and custom software development. Scheduled activities include virtual roundtables on 30 June 2026 and 7 July 2026, intended for pre-market engagement. Interested parties can express interest by 29 June 2026. The contract period is anticipated to start from 1 January 2027 through to 29 February 2028 in London, United Kingdom.

This procurement process is an excellent opportunity for SMEs, start-ups, and larger suppliers or consortia interested in software development and innovation within the public sector. The Commercial Innovation Hub seeks to enable early collaboration, reduce barriers to market entry, and support the discovery of commercially viable solutions. Businesses specialising in research, software development, or those with innovative capabilities can leverage this opportunity to establish significant interaction and partnerships with public sector entities. This initiative is poised to enhance supplier engagement, allowing them to better understand user needs and shape deliverable solutions.

## Notice

**Problem Statement** Public sector procurement of innovation is fragmented and risk-averse, with buyers struggling to engage markets and suppliers facing high barriers. A digital pre-procurement environment is needed to enable early collaboration, testing, and clearer routes to scale innovative solutions to unmet public sector needs. **Intention** Public sector procurement of innovation is currently fragmented, risk-averse, and misaligned to the needs of both buyers and suppliers;, limiting the ability to identify, test, and scale innovative solutions. Buyers struggle to engage the market early, run scalable pilots, and translate complex challenges into viable commercial pathways, while suppliers (particularly SMEs and start-ups) face unclear demands, high barriers to entry, and limited routes from idea to contract. Although there is an ambition to procure innovation, existing processes are not designed for experimentation or iterative learning. This results in missed opportunities and slow adoption of new technologies. There is therefore a need for a controlled, digital pre-procurement environment that enables early collaboration, rapid testing, and evidence generation to de-risk future procurements and create clearer pathways from problem identification to scalable delivery. The Commercial Innovation Hub is seeking to develop a digital Innovation hub. An online networking environment to help public sector users and suppliers test problems, explore innovative solutions, collaborate with others and build a stronger evidence base before launching a formal procurement process. The hub could include a series of modules such as sandbox areas, supplier directories, noticeboards, document repositories and chatrooms and must be able to evolve and grow as needs arise. Within the hub the formal route to market, the Innovation Marketplace dynamic market will also be linked. The Hub is intended to provide a cross cutting one stop space where premarket conversation can take place and public sector buyers and suppliers can communicate freely, share problem solving ideas and build on those insights, to feed into formal market engagement and procurement activity. Its purpose is to encourage earlier collaboration, reduce barriers to innovation, and support more effective and commercially viable routes to future procurement and scaling. What the Innovation Hub and Innovation Marketplace dynamic market will do: The proposal is exploring a digital Innovation Hub that links to the Government Commercial Agency's Innovation Marketplace architecture, creating a joined-up, demand-led entry point between public sector buyers with complex requirements and suppliers offering innovative solutions to public sector challenges. The aim is to make engagement easier, clearer, and compliant with procurement rules. What success would look like Success would mean: - More meaningful formal market engagement and broadens supplier participation. - Allows users to test and refine real problems in the Hub areas before progressing to the Innovation Marketplace. - Shows whether credible, commercially viable solutions already exist or could be developed. - Supports supplier engagement that improves understanding of user needs, tests ideas, and shapes practical, deliverable solutions. - Encourages participation from a broader and more diverse supplier base, including SMEs, without being too restrictive. - Provides a usable and accessible process that enables buyers and suppliers to engage with the Hub effectively. Who the end users are Likely users include: - public sector buyers and commercial teams - policy teams and other specialist functions - SMEs, start-ups, and scale-ups - larger suppliers or consortia working with smaller innovators The pre-market engagement will inform and support the Commercial Innovation Hub team in identify (existing solutions, supplier build proposals, best practise, etc...), assess supplier capability, and explore how the digital Hub could support earlier engagement between public sector users and innovative suppliers. It will also help define the features, and engagement methods needed to make the digital Hub a practical tool for innovation-friendly procurement and for directing suppliers to the GCA Innovation Marketplace. *** This is early market engagement for a potential opportunity. The Department is not obligated to run a procurement following this activity and is not liable for any costs associated with participating in this early engagement. ***

### Planning Information

The Commercial Innovation Hub team intends to hold two virtual roundtables as part of this pre-market engagement. The first will explore potential approaches to designing and building the Hub platform. The second will gather views from potential users on the features, functionality, and value the Hub should provide. 
Hub supplier’s roundtable: 30 June 2026 at 15:00 
Hub user input roundtable: 7 July 2026 at 14:00 
To express interest in attending one or both roundtables, please complete the following form by 17:00 on 29 June 2026. 
https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=BXCsy8EC60O0l-ZJLRst2IIOKOj1BN1Bh7fEKaHmEBxUQzZZTEI2VUMyWlhNRDFBVk4xRFdGSlNNTC4u 
A maximum of two attendees per organisation may attend. 
Following the Innovation Hub supplier roundtable, suppliers who attend the session on 30 June 2026 may be invited to provide further information through a follow-up clarification form.

## Key Details

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Publication source | Find A Tender Service |
| Latest notice | https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/058870-2026 |
| Notice type | UK2 - Preliminary Market Engagement Notice |
| Procurement type | Standard |
| Procurement category | Services |
| Procurement method | Not Specified |
| Procurement method details | Not specified |
| Tender suitability | Not specified |
| Awardee scale | Not specified |
| All stages | Planning |

## Dates

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Publication date | 23 Jun 2026 |
| Submission deadline | Not specified |
| Future notice date | 10 Jul 2026 |
| Award date | Not specified |
| Contract period | 1 Jan 2027 - 29 Feb 2028 |
| Recurrence | Not specified |

## Values

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Tender value | Not specified |
| Lots value | Not specified |
| Awards value | Not specified |
| Contracts value | Not specified |

## Status

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Tender status | Planning |
| Lots status | Planning |
| Awards status | Not specified |
| Contracts status | Not specified |

## Buyer

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Main buyer | DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY |
| Locality | LONDON |
| Post town | South West London |
| Postcode | SW1A 2EG |
| Country | England |
| ITL 1 | TLI London |
| ITL 2 | TLI3 Inner London - West |
| ITL 3 | TLI35 Westminster and City of London |
| Local authority | Westminster |
| Electoral ward | St James's |
| Westminster constituency | Cities of London and Westminster |
| Delivery location | Not specified |

## CPV Codes

### Divisions

- 72 - IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support
- 73 - Research and development services and related consultancy services

### Codes

- 72212900 - Miscellaneous software development services and computer systems
- 72230000 - Custom software development services
- 73100000 - Research and experimental development services

## Release History

- 23 Jun 2026 at 10:39 - Planning - UK2 - Preliminary Market Engagement Notice - https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/058870-2026

## Documents

- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/058870-2026
  23rd June 2026 - Preliminary market engagement notice on Find a Tender

## Notice URLs

- https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=BXCsy8EC60O0l-ZJLRst2IIOKOj1BN1Bh7fEKaHmEBxUQzZZTEI2VUMyWlhNRDFBVk4xRFdGSlNNTC4u
- https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/54/contents

## Provenance

This Markdown file is an alternate public rendering of the D3 Tenders contract record. The canonical page is https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-h6vhtk-06badf. The underlying structured data is available as OCDS JSON at https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-06badf.json.