Opportunity

Cloud Infrastructure, Trusted Research Environment, and Researcher Billing Contract

  • OUR FUTURE HEALTH

F02: Contract notice

Notice reference: 2022/S 000-006084

Published 4 March 2022, 4:32pm



Section one: Contracting authority

one.1) Name and addresses

OUR FUTURE HEALTH

6 Stanley Street

SALFORD

M35GS

Contact

CURSHAW Ltd, acting on behalf of Our Future Health

Email

ourfuturehealth@curshaw.com

Country

United Kingdom

NUTS code

UK - United Kingdom

Internet address(es)

Main address

https://ourfuturehealth.org.uk/

one.3) Communication

The procurement documents are available for unrestricted and full direct access, free of charge, at

https://ourfuturehealth.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/OFH-CITRERB.zip

Additional information can be obtained from the above-mentioned address

Tenders or requests to participate must be submitted to the above-mentioned address

one.4) Type of the contracting authority

Other type

Health Research and Development

one.5) Main activity

Other activity

Health research


Section two: Object

two.1) Scope of the procurement

two.1.1) Title

Cloud Infrastructure, Trusted Research Environment, and Researcher Billing Contract

Reference number

OFH-CITRERB-20220303

two.1.2) Main CPV code

  • 72222300 - Information technology services

two.1.3) Type of contract

Services

two.1.4) Short description

Our Future Health aims to be the UK's largest ever health research programme. It is designed to help people live healthier lives for longer through the discovery and testing of more effective approaches to prevention, earlier detection and treatment of diseases.

Our Future Health aims to procure:

- secure and scalable public cloud infrastructure to support our health research programme

- a trusted research environment (TRE) to enable registered and approved researchers to access and use data within a secure environment

- a partner to manage the billing of cloud compute and storage costs for researchers using the TRE

two.1.6) Information about lots

This contract is divided into lots: Yes

Tenders may be submitted for all lots

Maximum number of lots that may be awarded to one tenderer: 3

The contracting authority reserves the right to award contracts combining the following lots or groups of lots:

Regardless of the evaluation outcome, Our Future Health will award two contracts for:

- Lot 1 (with or without Lot 3)

- Lot 2 (with or without Lot 3)

two.2) Description

two.2.1) Title

Cloud infrastructure

Lot No

1

two.2.2) Additional CPV code(s)

  • 72222300 - Information technology services

two.2.3) Place of performance

NUTS codes
  • UK - United Kingdom

two.2.4) Description of the procurement

Our Future Health aims to procure secure and scalable public cloud infrastructure to support a health research programme. The selected supplier will be one of our most important technology partners as we build and scale our systems. The cloud infrastructure will underpin web sites and apps used by our participants, a data store and data processing systems, a trusted research environment (TRE) and associated systems used by researchers from around the world, and underlying systems to operate and monitor the programme.

The selected supplier will provide UK hosting for secure public cloud infrastructure with a comprehensive set of standard compute, storage and infrastructure services. We are interested to work with cloud providers that have good availability of TRE providers already working within their systems.

Estimated value excluding VAT: between £3m and £6.5m over 3 years; £20m over 5 years

We expect costs to increase as participant numbers increase. Total projected costs during years 1-3 of the contractual arrangement would be between £3m and £6.5m and over 5 years we expect a range of £9m - £21m. We will not be able to predict a narrower range until we have more clarity during 2022 about which services will be hosted in our cloud and which with suppliers, as well as more detailed technical and data architecture that will happen following this procurement. Note that these costs include only Our Future Health usage of our cloud, not that of the researchers using the TRE billed separated by the Lot 3 supplier. The total cloud expenditure will therefore be considerably greater than the value of our contract.

two.2.5) Award criteria

Price is not the only award criterion and all criteria are stated only in the procurement documents

two.2.7) Duration of the contract, framework agreement or dynamic purchasing system

Duration in months

36

This contract is subject to renewal

Yes

Description of renewals

Extensions of up to 12 months (per renewal) subject to a maximum Term of 5 years in total

two.2.10) Information about variants

Variants will be accepted: No

two.2.11) Information about options

Options: Yes

Description of options

The contract includes options to provide additional services which are detailed in the procurement documents

two.2.14) Additional information

To respond to this opportunity please email ourfuturehealth@curshaw.com stating in the subject line that this tender relates to Lot 1

two.2) Description

two.2.1) Title

Trusted research environment

Lot No

2

two.2.2) Additional CPV code(s)

  • 72222300 - Information technology services

two.2.3) Place of performance

NUTS codes
  • UK - United Kingdom

two.2.4) Description of the procurement

Our Future Health is planning to procure a trusted research environment (TRE) to enable registered researchers to access and use data within a single secure environment to conduct approved research studies. The success of Our Future Health rests on the research that is done with the data and the cohort, together with our commitment to robust security, strict governance and participant confidentiality. A TRE is an environment, that may be cloud-based, that allows registered researchers working on an approved study to conduct analysis on de-identified or pseudonymised datasets in a secure manner, where export of results data is permitted but exports of individual level data is not permitted. It is expected that a TRE will create a separate partitioned workspace for each approved study, allow registered researchers to use a variety of common tools for data science, analysis, and research (including large-scale genomic analysis), to upload additional tools and datasets subject to the security restrictions of the environment, to have flexibility in their use of compute and storage resources. A TRE should maintain the access control and secure boundary to prevent unauthorised access to or download of data, and to maintain auditable access and usage logs.

The selected TRE (lot 2) will be expected to run on the selected cloud infrastructure (lot 1), with the selected provider of researcher billing (lot 3) providing services to manage the cost and billing of cloud usage by researchers in the TRE.

We hope to have a beta version of a TRE tested and launched by the end of Q3 2022, and a full version tested and launched by the end of Q4 2022.

Estimated value excluding VAT: between £2m and £3.15m over 3 years; between £3m and £4.75m over 5 years

We are assuming that set-up costs will range between £0.5 and £1m. Any separately charged set-up will be milestone driven and payable on the successful completion of the key steps in the implementation and integration. Total committed costs therefore including set-up and years 1-3 of the contractual arrangement would therefore be between £2m and £3.15m. Costs for years 4-5 are expected to be in the range of £1.0m to £1.6m, driving a total contract value between £3m and £4.75m.

two.2.5) Award criteria

Price is not the only award criterion and all criteria are stated only in the procurement documents

two.2.7) Duration of the contract, framework agreement or dynamic purchasing system

Duration in months

36

This contract is subject to renewal

Yes

Description of renewals

Extensions of up to 12 months (per renewal) subject to a maximum Term of 5 years in total

two.2.10) Information about variants

Variants will be accepted: No

two.2.11) Information about options

Options: Yes

Description of options

The contract includes options to provide additional services which are detailed in the procurement documents

two.2.14) Additional information

To respond to this opportunity please email ourfuturehealth@curshaw.com stating in the subject line that this tender relates to Lot 2

two.2) Description

two.2.1) Title

Researcher billing

Lot No

3

two.2.2) Additional CPV code(s)

  • 48444100 - Billing system
  • 72222300 - Information technology services

two.2.3) Place of performance

NUTS codes
  • UK - United Kingdom

two.2.4) Description of the procurement

In order to provide a scalable and flexible service, where researchers can use the cloud resources that they need, we anticipate a system where researchers pay for their own cloud storage and compute within their TRE workspace. We are therefore planning to procure a partner who can meet the following requirements, working together with the selected provider of public cloud infrastructure (lot 1) or the selected TRE (lot 2):

- Billing of researchers and collection of payments to be handled by a supplier or partner, not by Our Future Health.

- Our Future Health shall not be liable for the costs of researchers' compute and storage within the TRE.

- Our Future Health shall not incur data transfer charges between the primary data store and the TRE.

- Cloud pricing shall be uniform for both Our Future Health's usage and researcher usage.

Bidders cannot bid for Lot 3 alone and must bid for both or either Lot 1 and/or Lot 2.

two.2.5) Award criteria

Price is not the only award criterion and all criteria are stated only in the procurement documents

two.2.7) Duration of the contract, framework agreement or dynamic purchasing system

Duration in months

36

This contract is subject to renewal

Yes

Description of renewals

Extensions of up to 12 months (per renewal) subject to a maximum Term of 5 years in total

two.2.10) Information about variants

Variants will be accepted: No

two.2.11) Information about options

Options: Yes

Description of options

The contract includes options to provide additional services which are detailed in the procurement documents

two.2.14) Additional information

To respond to this opportunity please email ourfuturehealth@curshaw.com stating in the subject line that this tender relates to Lot 3


Section three. Legal, economic, financial and technical information

three.1) Conditions for participation

three.1.2) Economic and financial standing

Selection criteria as stated in the procurement documents

three.1.3) Technical and professional ability

Selection criteria as stated in the procurement documents


Section four. Procedure

four.1) Description

four.1.1) Type of procedure

Open procedure

four.1.8) Information about the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA)

The procurement is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement: Yes

four.2) Administrative information

four.2.1) Previous publication concerning this procedure

Notice number: 2021/S 000-031637

four.2.2) Time limit for receipt of tenders or requests to participate

Date

28 March 2022

Local time

12:00pm

four.2.4) Languages in which tenders or requests to participate may be submitted

English

four.2.6) Minimum time frame during which the tenderer must maintain the tender

Duration in months: 5 (from the date stated for receipt of tender)

four.2.7) Conditions for opening of tenders

Date

28 March 2022

Local time

1:00pm


Section six. Complementary information

six.1) Information about recurrence

This is a recurrent procurement: No

six.2) Information about electronic workflows

Electronic invoicing will be accepted

Electronic payment will be used

six.3) Additional information

The contracting authority considers that this contract may be suitable for economic operators that are small or medium enterprises (SMEs). However, any selection of tenderers will be based solely on the criteria set out for the procurement.

To respond to this opportunity please email ourfuturehealth@curshaw.com stating in the subject line that this tender relates to Lot 1, Lot 2 or Lot 3. If responding to all three Lots, please email separately.

six.4) Procedures for review

six.4.1) Review body

CURSHAW Ltd c/o Our Future Health

2 New Bailey, 6 Stanley Street

Manchester

M3 5GS

Email

ourfuturehealth@curshaw.com

Country

United Kingdom