This opportunity is closed for applications

The deadline was Tuesday 30 November 2021

Department for International Trade

Domestic Participant Recruitment

1 Incomplete application

1 SME, 0 large

5 Completed applications

5 SME, 0 large

• Published: Tuesday 16 November 2021
• Deadline for asking questions: Tuesday 23 November 2021 at 11:59pm GMT
• Closing date for applications: Tuesday 30 November 2021 at 11:59pm GMT

Overview

• Summary of the work: Call-off contract to recruit participants from UK companies to attend user research sessions at the Department for International Trade.
• Location: London
• Research dates: Call-Off Contract from 2 years from Contract Award.
• Organisation the work is for: Department for International Trade
• Budget range: £200,000 for the two-year contract. Price per participant (including management fees and incentives).

About the work

• Early market engagement: A pre-market engagement event was held on 04 October 2021, where all Supplier under this lot were invited. The purpose of this session was to provide all suppliers with more detailed background and to refine the DIT's requirements.

About the research

• Description of your participants: The majority of users will need to meet the following requirements: ; ; Employed by/runs UK-based businesses that either currently trade (export and/or import) or are actively interested in doing so in the next few years. (We will require participants from both current and potential future traders.) ; ; Have significant responsibility for making decisions around setting-up, maintaining and expanding international business via exporting/importing ; ; Have not accessed tailored government/departmental help or support before ; ; Interested in starting or growing exports in the next 5 years ; ; The recruiter will be expected to recruit users with additional requirements when necessary (eg. participants must come from specific industries or specific roles). In these situations the Department will discuss the brief with the recruiter and allow for additional lead time and costs.
• Assisted digital and accessibility requirements: Approx. 1/10 users recruited should have either low digital skills or accessibility requirements. The recruiter should, over the contract term, be able to recruit the full range of users with accessibility requirements (visual, hearing, cognitive, mobility, etc).
• Research plan: The Contract will cover multiple research plans. The recruiter will be expected to adapt to new requirements as new plans emerge. Multiple recruits may run simultaneously.
• Research location: Majority of users will be doing research remotely (this may be subject to change dependant on COVID guidelines), however, there may be a requirement for the research to be conducted at the DIT's London office or other locations (including offices in Belfast, Cardiff, Bristol, Manchester, Glasgow, and Darlington, as well as non-office locations).
• Access restrictions at location: The London office is wheelchair accessible.
• Number of research rounds: This is a Call-Off Contract. There will not be a set number of rounds.
• Number of participants a round: The size of rounds will vary depending upon the research projects.
• How often research will happen: This is yet to be determined. This could be as fortnightly, however, the exact requirements will be dependant on business dates.
• Evening or weekend research: Weekday evenings

Additional information

Skills and experience

Buyers will use the essential and nice-to-have skills and experience to help them evaluate suppliers’ technical competence.

• Essential skills and experience:
  • Able to deliver research participants, including employees of businesses interested or involved in exporting goods and services (5%)
  • Able to deliver research participants that have accessibility needs or assisted digital needs (4%)
  • Able to manage participant recruitment workload of large organisation with multiple research projects and multiple researchers, whilst consistently delivering a quality service (5%)
  • Able to manage administrative/logistical tasks of recruiting participants, including getting consent for recording sessions, scheduling, paying participants, ensuring participants can join, ensuring participants understand gdpr and privacy documents (4%)
  • Able to ensure delivery of correct amount of participants by preventing participants from not showing up and promptly replacing drop outs (4%)
  • Able to work effectively to short timescales whilst still meeting participant specifications (4%)
  • Able to deliver participants to take part in a range of alternative research activities including but not limited to usability tests, interviews, surveys and diary studies (4%)

How suppliers will be evaluated

All suppliers will be asked to provide a written proposal.

• How many suppliers to evaluate: 5
• Proposal criteria:
  • Imagine that a DIT researcher requests that you recruit a group of research participants for usability testing. Describe the steps you would take to deliver the request. (7.5%)
  • Describe how you would update and inform DIT of ongoing work during a research project and how you would prevent miscommunications and failure to communicate (7.5%)
  • Describe how you would recruit users that have accessibility or assisted digital needs within small user group (for example, CEOs of food and drink companies) (7.5%)
  • Describe how you would ensure that you deliver a consistent high quality service. Include ways you would address a decline in quality, how you manage risks and dependencies. (7.5%)
  • Imagine that you are uncertain if you will be able to deliver a recruitment for hard-to-recruit users within the deadline. Please outline what steps would you take (10%)
  • Describe how you will ensure availability of suitable participants during the life of the contract. (10%)
• Evaluation weighting:

  Technical competence

  60%

  Availability

  20%

  Price

  20%

Questions asked by suppliers

• 1. *IMPORTANT NOTICE*: The Authority will assess the following proposal criteria through a presentation: Proposal Criteria 1, 2, 4 and 5. ; ; The Authority will provide further details regarding the presentation to the shortlisted Suppliers.