RFI: AISI - Post-Award Research Grant Administration

“The Artificial Intelligence Security Institute (AISI), a directorate of the former Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), is seeking information from the market to help test the feasibility, deliverability, and commercial attractiveness of a proposed requirement for the AISI Grants Portfolio. The AISI funds external research through competitively awarded grant programmes. Awards are made to universities, research institutes and non-profit organisations. The Authority currently administers grants in-house and is considering whether a specialist delivery partner could provide all or part of the post-award administration function for future grant programmes. This Request for Information (RFI) is intended to inform the Authority's understanding of market capability and delivery models. This engagement does not constitute a procurement process and places no obligation on either the Authority or participating suppliers. The Authority's current portfolio comprises approximately:

• £20m of live grant funding;

• around 100 active grants;

• individual grants ranging between £100,000 and £1,000,000;

• typical grant durations of 6 to 24 months. Future programmes are expected to be broadly similar in nature, although scope, scale and delivery models may change. The grants are primarily research-focused and commonly involve:

• UK universities;

• overseas universities;

• research organisations;

• non-profit entities;

• collaborative research projects. The Authority is seeking information on supplier capability to deliver post-award grant administration services. For the purposes of this engagement, "post-award" includes all activities following the Authority's funding decision, including due diligence activities conducted prior to execution of grant agreements. The assessment of applications, evaluation of proposals and selection of grant recipients will remain the responsibility of the Authority and its expert reviewers and are not within scope. Accountability for each grant remains with the Authority under GovS 015: Grants. Any operating model will retain the Authority's grant manager in a decision-making role, with defined thresholds for what a delivery partner may decide and what must be escalated. Potential activities may include, but are not limited to:

• issuing and executing grant agreements using Authority-provided templates;

• managing amendments, variations, novations and extensions;”