Innovation Marketplace
Summary
This agreement gives central government and the wider public sector access to suppliers specialising in a wide range of innovative services and solutions. This includes traditional IT as well as novel technologies, to help pilot innovations and contract with new supply chains. It is a dynamic market let under the Procurement Act 2023.
Description
RM6419 Innovation Marketplace is a new agreement developed by GCA in partnership with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (DBIST). It forms part of the wider DBIST Commercial Innovation Hub initiative.
It will provide a place for buyers to access suppliers who specialise in innovation. The Innovation Marketplace will cover a wide range of services.
The idea is to encourage innovation and provide a more accessible pathway from idea to public sector contract. Suppliers and buyers will be able to experiment with solutions before launching a formal procurement:
- Suppliers engage with organisations to come up with potential solutions to their challenges.
- Problems and solutions are reviewed within the Commercial Innovation Hub.
- The Innovation Marketplace provides a route to market for any potential solutions that are taken forward.
Benefits
- helps the procurement of innovation across government and the wider public sector
- provides startups, SMEs and academia a clearer route into government
- designed to improve awareness and practical use of commercial innovation opportunities
- enables buyers to access suppliers specialising in a wide range of innovative solutions
- integrates with DBIST-led Collaboration Zone (Sandbox) to facilitate problem-solving and solution development
- uses Procurement Act 2023 flexibilities to support novel technologies and SME participation
Product types
As this is a dynamic market, the exact scope of the agreement is not yet fully defined. The agreement will focus on providing a marketplace for innovative services and solutions. It will cover various sectors.
Customer engagement
We have carried out a compressed customer engagement phase, including drop-in webinars for:
- customers across central government departments
- devolved administrations
- the wider public sector
We used a multichannel approach including surveys, live events, and focus groups. We wanted to understand:
- how our customers feel about innovation
- what our customers see as the benefits to innovation
- the barriers our customers face to accessing innovation
We also consulted on routes to market and preferred agreement features.
Supplier engagement
Supplier engagement sessions took place in August and September 2026. There are no future supplier engagement sessions planned. There is still an opportunity to for you to provide us with your thoughts on the design of this agreement and we are still keen to hear from you. If you would like to share your ideas, please complete our short, anonymous, anonymous, Innovation Marketplace supplier survey.
A recording of our supplier webinar is available to provide you with a detailed understanding of the purpose and design of the agreement.
Following both the webinar sessions and the focus groups, we have created a detailed summary of the feedback that we have received that will inform the detailed design process of the Innovation Marketplace. This summary is linked in the document section below.
Documents
RM6419 Supplier engagement frequently asked questions (FAQs)
Webinar and focus group summary.
Important links
| Pipeline notice | Read pipeline notice |
| Preliminary market engagement notice | Read preliminary market engagement notice |
| Planned procurement notice | Not available yet |
| Contract notice in Find a Tender (FTS) | Not available yet |
| Tender documents | Not available yet |
Timeline
| Activity | Estimated dates |
| Pre-market engagement | August to October 2026 |
| Drafting of procurement documentation | October to December 2026 |
| Marketplace goes live | Late March 2027 |