Talking Tenders with Highlands and Islands Enterprise

Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) has published a Contract Notice for Northern Innovation Hub (NIH): Food and Drink TechHUB Strand 1 – Business Support Services. The NIH is part of the Inverness and Highland City-Region Deal - a joint initiative supported by £315m investment from the UK and Scottish governments, The Highland Council, HIE and the University of the Highlands and Islands.

It is HIE’s aim to raise awareness and to support suppliers to understand more about the tender opportunity and process to bid for the contract.

The contract will provide business support services to Food & Drink producers (SMEs) in the Highland Council area. This will include specialist support, facilitating access to Food & Drink Scientists and Technologists and other relevant technical support (including outreach activity) and networking activity services. 

The key tasks include:

• bringing Food & Drink businesses together
• supporting businesses including brokering specialist/technical support
• raising awareness and increase implementation of new technologies and opportunities
• developing transformational local, national, and international triple-helix collaborations between public sector, businesses, and academia
• engaging with partners and stakeholders
• nurturing young entrepreneurs – provide complementary support to the relevant cohort(s) of IMPACT30 participants
• reporting, monitoring and evaluation

The estimated initial duration of the contract is three years, with the opportunity to extend the contract for one year.

Support from the Supplier Development Programme

Micro, small and medium sized businesses can access free training with SDP Scotland to prepare for this opportunity.

Highlands and Islands Enterprise is working in partnership with the Supplier Development Programme to host a Talking Tenders with Highlands and Islands Enterprise – Food and Drink TechHUB Strand 1 – Business Support webinar on 18 January 2022. Through this aligned training, which is open to all businesses, HIE wants to support suppliers to understand more about the tender opportunity and the bidding process for the contract. During the session, representatives from HIE will give background on the contract and give suppliers an idea of what type of suppliers it is looking for, and SDP will provide free, aligned training on how to tender.

How to prepare for this event 

You can attend the webinar from the comfort of your own desk – the joining instructions and Cisco WebEx link are contained within the confirmation email received at time of booking, and also within the reminder emails. To prepare, you can access SDP's top tips on how to join a webinar, or alternatively please email info@sdpscotland.co.uk if you have any further questions about the joining process.

Please feel free to join the webinar before the start time.