Public procurement notice: Contract Notice
Published: 2019-03-13
Buyer: United Utilities Water Limited
Country: UK
Contract type: Supplies
Procedure: Innovation partnership
CPV classification: 34152000 | 35113000: Safety equipment | 35113100 | 35125100: Sensors | 38421100
Submission deadline: 2019-04-15
Award criteria: The most economic tender

Technical requirements: This procurement follows the Innovation Partnership procedure and seeks innovative businesses to help UU tackle key industry challenges in innovative ways.
The top applicants will win places in UU's Innovation Lab. The Lab is a 10-week programme and participants will co-locate and work with UU to develop, improve, test and demonstrate their idea, potentially in live environments. A supply arrangement may follow.
Those meeting the published selection criteria will be invited to put forward ideas (no more than 5), in 4 categories as described below. See www.unitedutilities.com/innovation for more detail.
United Utilities want to tackle our key business challenges so we can provide better, more cost effective services for customers. That means building relationships with businesses who share our vision, ambition and appetite for innovation.
The 10-week programme will be run in collaboration with corporate innovation specialist L Marks and successful candidates will be mentored by senior United Utilities business leaders and get access to test and demonstrate your product/service in live customer environments.
This year we have 4 categories all with a focus to further accelerate our Systems Thinking plans. Our Systems Thinking approach ensures we understand our whole end to end systems to better predict events and allow us to resolve issues before they occur.
At Application Stage, candidates will only pass through to the Ideas Stage if they are of good standing and are willing to agree to 1 of 2 commercial relationship options detailed in the application form.
At Ideas stage, the top 24 highest scoring applicants will pass through to Pitch Day (providing their score is 40 % or above).
At Pitch Day, the top 8 highest scoring applicants will be awarded a place in the Innovation Lab (providing their score is 75 % or above).
At both Ideas Stage and Pitch Day, applicants can be rejected if their idea has no innovative aspects to it, is not likely to be of benefit or relevance to UU, or it would not be possible to develop the idea substantially during the time available in the lab.
Interested economic operators must confirm in their application that they have the capacity to attend the Innovation Lab in order to pass through to the Ideas Stage.
UU requires a return on its investment. In order to pass through to the Ideas Stage, interested economic operators must confirm in their application that they are willing to offer UU 1 or more of:
UU may specify certain requirements as to the legal form of lab participants, for example successful economic operators may be required to form a limited company and/or to transfer their business (including any relevant intellectual property rights) into the limited company prior to entry into the Lab.
UU will be working with L Marks in the delivery of this procurement process. Documents including a step-by-step guide and how to use the Portal have been included within the documents folder and more information can be found on the website at www.unitedutilities.com/innovation.
Following the completion of the Innovation Lab, UU may enter into a supply agreement with 1 or more participants. The maximum price will be set at no more than demonstrable and approved costs + 50 % margin.

Eligibility requirements: Interested economic operators must be of good standing to pass through to the Ideas Stage.