RM1043.9-1-UK SPORTS INSTITUTE P.Hub Prototype

Description

Summary of the work: This procurement is for the delivery of an alpha-phase prototype of a system that enables people to capture, share and access sports performance insight and knowledge contributed in various formats by people across the organisations of the UK Olympic and Paralympic sporting system. We envisage an AI-enabled knowledge collection, curation and insight generation solution that drives connection, collaboration, faster learning and improved decision-making for sports performance staff. Pricing model: Capped time and materials Confirm if you require a contracted out service or supply of resource: Contracted out service: the off-payroll rules do not apply Where you want the supplier to work: No specific location (for example they can work remotely) Latest start date: 2026-09-01 Expected contract length: 1-08-00 Expected contract structure: Initial term (alpha phase) 3 months with an optional extension up to 31st March 2028 if UKSI decides to proceed beyond the alpha phase. Estimated contract value (excl VAT): 125000 Budget details: The estimated contract value is for the initial alpha phase. If the project extends to the next phase, additional budget will be defined. There is no commitment or guarantee to move beyond the alpha stage. UKSI reserves the right, at its discretion, to commission the successful supplier to deliver subsequent phases (including beta and/or live service development) under the same contract, without further competition. Any such subsequent phases will be subject to agreement of scope, timeline and price, and satisfactory performance of the supplier during the alpha phase. Suppliers should provide a rate card that may be used for any subsequent phases should these be commissioned. Why the work is being done: The UK Sports Institute (UKSI) is a public sector arm's-length body responsible for delivering outstanding support that enables sports and athletes to excel. The organisation serves UK Olympic and Paralympic sport performance programmes funded by its parent organisation – UK Sport. UK Olympic and Paralympic sport are united under UK Sport with a collective mission to win and win well, grow a thriving sporting system, and inspire positive change. A new System Performance Support strategy includes improved use of Data & AI to improve performance as one of eight strategic plays. The flagship initiative for the data and AI strategy envisages a ‘Performance Hub’: A digital place to connect people, data, knowledge and insight from across the organisations that make up the sporting system to inform decision making and accelerate learning that impacts sporting performance. This alpha-stage project is designed to test the technical and cultural assumptions underpinning the Performance Hub concept, creating a prototype-only solution for a small number of use cases, in a short amount of time. These assumptions include: • People will contribute valuable information that benefits others, creating a self-sustaining virtuous cycle • Better use and sharing of the sporting system’s collective information produces genuinely valuable insight that improves decision making and accelerates learning • Advances in AI make capture, curation, and access to valuable information (structured and unstructured) seamless for users across organisations • The Performance Hub can sustainably and securely operate as a product on behalf of all sporting system organisations and can evolve to keep pace with changes in technology and user needs. Problem to be solved: Performance Question: Can we develop a prototype approach to a system-wide ‘Performance Hub’ that will enable us to rapidly test the core people, process and technology assumptions behind a unified, accessible knowledge environment that moves beyond what is possible internally alone and provides further insight to the approach that might be needed for the wider Performance Hub system. The Problem: At present, data, insights and expertise are fragmented across sports, systems and individuals, limiting our ability to consistently share, connect and act on what we know. This creates duplication, inefficiency, and missed opportunities to accelerate performance outcomes. Colleagues work across 50+ separate, but highly interconnected organisations. However, different systems or different instances of the same systems create barriers to digital collaboration (sharing and access to documents, data, insight and knowledge). 3,000 world-leading sports performance experts exist within the community, but access to data, knowledge and insight beyond one’s immediate team is determined by relationships and the effort required to make connections. The Project: There is an opportunity to establish a system-wide “digital place” at the heart of high-performance sport — enabling us to build a proprietary repository of performance knowledge and unlock sustainable competitive advantage. We envisage a shared 'Performance Hub' which harnesses the power of AI to enable all people in our system to easily contribute, access and connect with performance data and insights. The core use case for this prototype project is to capture, curate and make available for interaction, structured and unstructured information, consisting of data, lists, notes, insights, videos, pictures, documents, and meeting transcripts. A limited number of use cases and data sources will be defined for use in the alpha phase. Who the users are and what they need to do: The primary users are employees of UK Sport, UKSI, and up to 50 sport Performance Programmes, who are focused on supporting UK athletes to perform at Olympic and Paralympic Games. Sport Performance Programme roles include Performance Directors, Coaches, Heads of Performance Support, and Sports Science and Medicine practitioners. The themes of information to capture and share includes: Athlete performance planning, training design, athlete health planning and injury/illness management, high performance environments, operations and logistics, lessons and insights from projects and solutions, insight from sport stakeholder engagement. Major use cases include: As a member of a Performance Programme, I need to easily access insight collated from across the UK Sporting System so that my judgement is informed by collective knowledge. As a member of a Performance Programme, I need relevant and trusted information from across the UK Sporting System to be applied directly to my performance context so that insight becomes actionable for my unique situation. As a member of a Performance Programme, I need to easily identify the source of insight and find expertise from across the UK Sporting System so that I can quickly make connections that help solve my performance problems. As a member of a Performance Programme, I need to seamlessly capture new information on an ongoing basis so that the quality and value of the proprietary knowledge base continually improves. As a UK Sport Performance Advisor, I need to make sense of all the knowledge and insight collected from my engagement with sports so that decisions, actions and priorities are best aligned to support sport's performance needs. As a Performance Hub user, I need to have trust in the insight and understand its limitations to confidently use in decision-making. As a Performance Hub user, I need control over how the information I contribute is shared to protect confidential or sensitive information. Work done so far: Work has been done to identify the opportunity, define the concept of the Performance Hub at a high level, and scope out the possible technical architecture based on our current Microsoft Azure environment, however the supplier of this project will be responsible for defining the specific use cases and solution. Current phase: Alpha Existing team: The UKSI team will consist of a part-time project lead, part-time data/decision intelligence specialist, and end-user representatives of the main use cases envisaged for the prototype. The supplier will work closely with UKSI and UK Sport IT, legal, and data protection teams to deliver the solution. The project will require the supplier to engage directly with stakeholders from UK Sport, UKSI and sport National Governing Bodies in various performance support roles, including Performance Advisors, Coaches, Performance Directors and Sports Science/Medicine practitioners. Incumbent supplier: No Working arrangements: The supplier is expected to propose a multidisciplinary team suited to an alpha phase. The organisation anticipates this will include at minimum: a delivery manager, an interaction/experience designer, and a technical/solution architect. The supplier should describe the specific team composition in their proposal. Working practices: o The engagement will be run using agile delivery methods aligned to GDS standards o Regular show-and-tell sessions will be held with key project stakeholders o A weekly standup will be held with the UKSI’s project lead • A UKSI project steering group will be established for periodic updates, major decision and direction setting during the project o All design and code artefacts must be stored in repositories accessible to the UKSI (e.g. GitHub, SharePoint) • The UKSI has an existing Azure tenant, Microsoft 365 and Power Platform licensing agreement which could be leveraged where appropriate • Full compliance with UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 is required; a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) will be required before real data is processed • Sport and other stakeholders will be defined by UKSI • UKSI will own foreground IP for the prototype created, and will retain all components of the solution for independent use Security clearance: Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) Special terms and conditions: • The prototype must follow the UK Government Secure by Design framework, embedding proportionate security consideration throughout discovery, design, development, testing, deployment and handover rather than treating security as a late-stage assurance activity • Suppliers must demonstrate familiarity with Secure by Design principles and explain how those principles will be adopted in delivering the prototype and informing any future hub design • Suppliers should explicitly consider the likely security posture required for a future Performance Hub • Advice on infrastructure options must include data sovereignty, hosting location, operational control, supplier dependency and assurance implications, alongside technical feasibility, cost and scalability • UKSI expects suppliers delivering this work to hold, or be able to evidence equivalent alignment with, ISO/IEC 27001:2022 for information security management and ISO/IEC 42001:2023 for artificial intelligence management; suppliers must state their certification status or explain equivalent controls, governance and audit arrangements • Security must receive explicit consideration throughout prototype development, including where prototype data is limited or synthetic, so that learning is generated for a future hub design that may handle more sensitive or strategically valuable information Questions and Clarifications 1. can you please clarify what questions must be answer for Stage 1 and what is the word limit? We see that in Attachment there are 7 questions as Condition of Participation requesting various confirmations. However, on Attachment 1 Statement of Requirements, in addition to the Condition of Participation there are 5 questions under Award Criteria each with a limit of 500 words plus the pricing questions. On the UKSI_ITT_PerformanceHub_DOS7Lot1June2026 you state that Responses to Questions 1–5 - we assume those under Award Criteria should be "max 250 words each". Answer everything in stage 1 to inform our shortlisting for stage 2. 500 words for questions 1-5, apologies for the contradiction between the portal and attachment. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:57 2. Start date vs. shortlisting timeline - The SOR gives a latest start date of 1st September 2026, but Stage 2 presentations are targeted for end of August/early September. Can you confirm the start date is still achievable, or whether it will move? It is possible that start date will move to another date in September, pending procurement and project mobilisation activity. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:56 3. Response format - Attachment 3 only appears to contain space for responses to the Conditions of Participation questions. Where should we provide our responses to the scored 'award criteria' questions? Please enter into the portal if possible, but if not then a Word or PDF document upload will be fine Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:56 4. Nature of the "proposed solution" - Condition of Participation 2 asks bidders to confirm their 'proposed solution' is compatible with M365/Azure, but the SOR says the supplier defines the specific solution during the alpha itself. At Stage 1, should this be read as a question about our general technical approach and track record with M365/Azure, rather than a specific solution design? There is no mandated technology stack. The sporting system runs on Microsoft 365, Copilot and Azure, and UKSI holds an existing Azure tenant plus Microsoft 365 and Power Platform licensing, so there is a preference for approaches that leverage those entitlements where appropriate. Suppliers may propose alternative or complementary components where they better achieve the alpha outcomes, provided they comply with UK Sport and UKSI IT and cyber security standards, meet UK data residency expectations, and can be justified on whole-life cost and sustainability grounds. The protoype phase must tell us what the right technology direction is. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:55 5. oord limit discrepancy - The ITT (Section 7) caps Stage 1 Questions 1–5 at 250 words each; the Statement of Requirements and Attachment 3 both state 500 words. Please confirm which applies. 500 Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:55 6. ISO/IEC 42001 equivalence - Re. the requirement for ISO/IEC 42001:2023 certification. Would formal accredited partner status with the likes of Anthropic and OpenAI, plus our internal AI governance and audit arrangements, count as sufficient evidence of equivalent alignment? Where a supplier does not hold ISO42001, then evidence that the organisation follows the 10 principles in the Artificial Intelligence Playbook for the UK Government should be included in the proposal as an appendix. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:55 7. Regarding the "optional extension up to 31st March 2028" are there specific milestones or outcomes that would trigger this decision, or is it purely contingent on the results of the alpha phase? The alpha phase will help inform if and how we proceed. If valuable and sustainable, the ambition is to develop a version of the Performance Hub concept for eventual access by all staff in the sporting system. The potential end date of 31st March is set as it is the end of our funding cycle, which follows the 4-year period covering each summer Olympic and Paralympic Games. However, the criteria and decision process for proceeding beyond the prototype phase has not yet been defined, will depend on wider data & digital strategic activity and governance, and UKSI reserves the right to carry out a further procurement exercise before proceeding with any future phase. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:54 8. Could you please confirm whether, for Stage 1, all questions only require a Yes/No response, with no additional description or supporting information? We also noticed that Q1 – Acceptance of Contract Terms does not provide a Yes/No response option and instead allows up to 250 words. Could you please clarify what you expect us to include in this response, other than confirming our acceptance of the DOS 7 Call-Off Contract Terms and Conditions without material deviation (or identifying any proposed deviations)? Yes/no For acceptance of contract terms, the text box is to enable any deviations to be defined. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:54 9. Regarding ISO/IEC 42001:2023 - will UKSI accept evidenced equivalent AI governance controls and audit arrangements in place of formal certification, and is there a preferred format for presenting that evidence? Suppliers must meet Cyber Essentials + or higher as baseline, and any technology provider that hosts or processes our data meets the relevant ISO standards. Where a supplier does not hold ISO42001, then evidence that the organisation follows the 10 principles in the Artificial Intelligence Playbook for the UK Government should be included in the proposal as an appendix. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:53 10. Our assumption is that our proposal for the alpha should meet the government's requirements of WCAG 2.2 level AA as standard. Are there any other standards that need to be met for accessibility? No other accessibility standards Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:53 11. What is the approximate volume of material in scope - document count, and hours of video or audio? For the alpha, assume a deliberately bounded data set to achieve the prototype objectives - a set of visit notes, insight write-ups, documents, transcripts and, images and a small amount of video drawn from Global Performance Insights. Curently ~3GB and 500 files, exact counts will be confirmed during the project; suppliers should state the volume assumptions their approach depends on. Alpha user numbers are indicatively 20-30. For beta and production modelling, the relevant population is around 3,000 performance staff across 50+ interconnected organisations and up to 50 sport performance programmes, with realistic early adoption in the low hundreds. Potential future cost insight based on those figures is a required alpha output. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:52 12. Is Azure OpenAI already provisioned in the tenant, and in which region? If required, this project is likely to use a separate Azure subscription. If required, we would aim to establish this as part of project mobilisation so as not to delay delivery. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:52 13. Given that injury and illness management is listed among the themes, is special category personal data in scope for the alpha, or will such content be excluded or synthesised at this phase? Special category personal data excluded for the alpha, but the design should should consider that athlete personal data would need to be accommodated in a production version, potentially including special category data. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:52 14. Should the running costs of the platform be included in the proposal, or will these be paid directly by UKSI? Where the prototype solution uses UKSI provisioned resources, we expect the associated costs to be paid directly by UKSI. If an indication of the likely costs to be incurred for the scope of the prototype can be provided in the proposal, this would help with project budgeting. Running costs are a key concern, for example the infrastructure and token usage ongoing costs. Therefore we are seeking proposals that demonstrate how the solution will be designed with operational costs in mind. For example, how do we optimise the use of AI to meet the needs in an efficient way, rather than deploying the most advanced model to every task where this may not be required. Understanding operational costs to move beyond a prototype will be a key output from the project informing next steps decision-making. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:51 15. What level of access will the supplier have to UKSI's Azure and Microsoft 365 environments, and what is the expected provisioning lead time? As required to deliver the solution and likely in a separate Azure subscription. If required, we would aim to establish this as part of project mobilisation so as not to delay delivery. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:51 16. What is the expected size of the user base for the alpha? A small cohort - indicatively 20-30 named users across UK Sport, UKSI and the 3-5 participating sports, made up of Performance Directors, Head Coaches, Heads of Performance Support, UK Sport Performance Advisors and selected UKSI and UK Sport staff. Exact numbers will be confirmed at the start of the project. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:50 17. Will UKSI be responsible for sourcing users for the alpha? Yes. UKSI and UK Sport will define the participating sports and stakeholders and secure named participants, with the UKSI project lead providing a dedicated route into the organisation throughout the engagement. The supplier is responsible for coordinating, scheduling, facilitating and following up on those sessions with our support. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:50 18. Is there an existing authentication system that would need to be used for the alpha prototype? If not, is the supplier free to determine the most appropriate option? We are assuming that Microsoft Entra (currently in use by UK Sport and UKSI) will be used as the authentication system for the Performance Hub prototype. Authorisation - determining access within the Performance Hub prototype - would need to be part of the alpha design. For the prototype, we expect this to be approximately 3 role types and 3 data access levels, e.g. personal (private), organisation (my immediate sport/team), public (sporting system). Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:49 19. Will the Alpha be UK only, English only, or is international support required? UK and English only Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:49 20. Since this involves "Secure by Design principles," are there any internal UKSI security policies that the technical architecture must align with from the outset? (outside of 42001, 27001, Cyber Essentials +) UKSI and UK Sport are committed to following the UK Government Secure by Design Framework, including the 10 Secure by Design principles. We need a supplier that can deliver against these principles and enable our responsibility to comply. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:48 21. Does UKSI have any data residency requirements? E.g. must all data be stored in the UK/EU only? Data Sovereignty is a key concern for UK Sport and UKSI and we will be seeking a design that maximises data sovereignty whilst achieving the objectives. Therefore, the design should target all data processing and storage to be in the UK. UK Sport and UKSI IT governance groups will have oversight of the design and associated security risks, and their approval will be needed to implement the proposed solution, and where ongoing design decisions are required. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:48 22. The project requires testing of information input routes and user behaviours. Are there existing platforms or "sandbox" environments available for this testing, or does the prototype need to be fully self-contained? There is no ready-made sandbox environment. The prototype is expected to be self-contained and hosted within a UKSI-controlled Azure environment. Testing of input routes should use the prototype itself alongside the everyday tools people already work in (Microsoft 365, Teams, mobile devices), so that observed behaviour is realistic. Where a route cannot be built within the alpha, a credible simulation or research-based test of the behaviour is acceptable provided the learning is evidenced. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:48 23. A key requirement is for collated and condensed information to be applied to the user’s performance context. Do they currently document this performance context in a digital system(s)? Each sport has lots of digital information in different systems and different formats (e.g. competition schedule, athlete performance plans, training plans, testing and monitoring data, etc). The production system could eventually integrate and gain context and data from all of these sources, but the alpha phase will need to be limited. It is expected that the prorotype will involve users asking context-specific questions and uploading context-specific data/information (e.g. recent results), with the tool using its knowledge to apply to that context. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:47 24. Will the alpha cover all sports supported by UKSI, or a selected subset? A subset - focused on those sports involved in related projects, indicatively 3-5 organisations alongside UK Sport and UKSI. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:47 25. Are there any more detailed functional specifications or user journeys available for the 7 use cases shared so far? If so, can these be shared? No detailed functional specifications exist beyond the five high-level use cases, the pre-defined insight categories and the material listed in the ITT and additional context documents. Detailed journeys are expected to be defined with users during co-design at the start of the engagement, which is why user research capability in the proposed team matters. Artefacts from the Global Performance Insights project will be shared with the successful supplier and will provide a useful starting point. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:46 26. You mentioned the goal is to test the technical and cultural assumptions which have been made for Performance Hub. Are there established KPIs or success metrics already defined for this evaluation, or should the proposal include defining these metrics during the co-design phase? Specific metrics are to be defined as part of the project - proposing how you would define and evidence them is part of what we are evaluating. We expect measures across four areas: user value (is the insight useful, does it change or speed up a decision); trust (does traceability to source increase confidence, what is the rate of unsupported or incorrect output); contribution behaviour (who contributes, how often, how much effort it takes, and what makes people stop); and feasibility and cost (technical viability, security and governance implications, and likely whole-life cost). Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:46 27. While the supplier is responsible for defining specific use cases, are there existing "must-have" use cases or a prioritisation framework already favored by UKSI? Or should the proposal include a discovery phase to define and rank these as part of the project? The five high-level use cases have been defined in the ITT. The alpha will be include the knowledge and insight captured from visits to high-performing organisations. A short discovery and co-design phase is expected, and should be included, to define and prioritise the detailed user journeys and success measures within those use cases with real users. Suppliers may propose alternative approaches to achieving the outcomes. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:45 28. Integration with existing systems beyond ingestion of datasets needed for approved use cases is out of scope. Can you provide any more information about the expected datasets for your highest priority use cases? For the prototype phase, we have a repository of information collected and produced by a separate project that is gathering insight on high performing organisations and includes pre-defined topics. Other information for the prototype could include notes and insights from engagement with sports by UK Sport Performance Advisors, and information captured by sport staff, for example when visiting LA to prepare for the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:45 29. Has UKSI experienced adoption failure with previous tooling, and if so, what were the causes? The sporting system is a complex landscape of 50+ organisations focused on their own athletes and sports, but also combining to achieve success at Olympic and Paralympic Games. From previous experience, it is likely that adoption will be dependent on several key factors, including: - Clarity of purpose and what the value add is, and that meaning something to people as individuals - feeling personal/specific to our sports needs, whilst also drawing on relevant knowledge and insight from across the sporting system - incredibly simple to use - we are excited by the possibilities of emerging technology to enable this, such as natural language voice interactions - specific, not generic insight, for example using context-specific information and tailoring sporting-system wide insight to the context of the user - embedded in existing workflows, not an additional step. For example, capturing reflections from attending a sports science conference whilst travelling home, or interacting with the Performance Hub as part of existing multi-disciplinary team meetings to discuss athlete performance planning - Beyond Q&A to guide and support people to work through performance problems, plan actions, etc. - Motivation and trust to share personal knowledge/IP for the benefit of the sporting system as a whole - Trust that insight is grounded in valid source material, verifiable, and free from hallucination/sycophancy - there is separate work underway to upskill people on AI (e.g. prompting, Copilot use cases) and create a community for sharing use cases, which will be important for rollout and adoption Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:44 30. Have UKSI previously attempted to complete this project? If so, what were the causes of failure? This project has not been attempted, however there has been some experimentation with using Microsoft Copilot Studio to create an agent fed by some of the Global Performance Insights information. This has enabled more structured responses than using standard Copilot alone, but is more limited than the ambition for the Performance Hub - e.g. Consideration of other data sets; ability to access for people across differemt organisations; ability for people to easily contribute new information directly - upload files, voice notes, etc; multi-modal output (not just text); architecture to enable future integration with other performance data systems; ability for users to add context - e.g. upload sport-specific data or information that insight should be tailored to; some level of roles (e.g. UK Sport Performance Advisorvs. sport practitioner) and permissions/consent (e.g. private, organisation-specific, system-wide); adoption/citation/KPI metrics - e.g. to identify trusted/valuable sources and determine confidence; Making people connections - e.g. by identifying people in the sporting system that have experience/expertise in a topic; More than Q&A - e.g. with in built agents that perform different roles, e.g. coaching and guiding people through performance questions/problems, or 'listening' to a meeting and providing relevant and timely insight that supports the conversation Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:44 31. When is the deadline for the Alpha phase? Is it the end of November (3 months after the proposed start date), or 3 months after the actual start date? 3 months after the actual start date Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:43 32. What is the expected outcome following the “optional extension up to 31st March 2028”? Is this the desired go-live date for the full build? The alpha phase will help inform if and how we proceed. If valuable and sustainable, the ambition is to develop a version of the Performance Hub concept for eventual access by all staff in the sporting system. The potential end date of 31st March is set as it is the end of our funding cycle, which follows the 4-year period covering each summer Olympic and Paralympic Games. However, the criteria and decision process for proceeding beyond the prototype phase has not yet been defined, will depend on wider data & digital strategic activity and governance, and UKSI reserves the right to carry out a further procurement exercise before proceeding with any future phase. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:43 33. Are there any fixed business, commercial or marketing deadlines that the project must support? The main deadline is a senior leadership and Board presentation before the end of 2026, including a demonstration of the Performance Hub prototype, what we have learned from a technical and cultural perspective, and implications and recommendations for the future of the Performance Hub concept. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:43 34. Does UKSI have a preferred platform requirement for the alpha? E.g a web application A web application is envisaged for the prototype Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:42 35. Please confirm whether suppliers must already hold Cyber Essentials Plus at the Stage 1 submission date. Where a supplier does not hold ISO/IEC 42001:2023 certification, please confirm the evidence UKSI will accept to demonstrate equivalent alignment, controls, governance and audit arrangements. All suppliers need to have at least Cyber Essentials Plus or better (ISO27001) at submission date. Where a supplier does not hold ISO42001, then evidence that the organisation follows the 10 principles in the Artificial Intelligence Playbook for the UK Government should be included in the proposal as an appendix. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:42 36. Please confirm whether responses to Questions 1–5 should be added to Attachment 3, entered directly into the portal, or uploaded as a separate document. Please also confirm the required file format. Please enter into the portal if possible, but if not then a Word or PDF document upload will be fine Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:41 37. Attachment 1 states a maximum response length of 500 words for each Award Criteria question, while section 7 of the UKSI ITT Performance Hub document states that responses to Questions 1–5 must not exceed 250 words each. Please confirm the applicable maximum word limit for each of the five scored questions. 500 Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:41 38. What is the word limit for the responses to the award criteria questions? It states 250 words in one document and 500 words in another. 500 Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:40 39. Attachment 3, Response to Stage 1, does not include the award criteria questions set out in Attachment 1, Statement of Requirements. However, we cannot see these questions identified elsewhere as Stage 2 requirements. Could you please confirm whether bidders should include responses to all award criteria questions, together with the completed pricing template, in the Stage 1 submission? Or should the Stage 1 response be limited to the Conditions of Participation questions listed in Attachment 3? Answer everything in stage 1 to inform our shortlisting for stage 2 Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:40 40. Who can contribute? And can contribution be anonymous? Who reviews submissions? Given organisations involved are likely resource and capacity constrained, will these individuals be able to add another task to their day to upload content? For the alpha, contribution is limited to named participants from UK Sport, UKSI and the 3-5 participating sports. Anonymous contribution is not assumed, but whether people want it - and whether attribution helps or hinders sharing - is one of the behavioural questions worth testing. The concern about capacity is central to the project: participants are time-constrained and will not adopt anything that adds a task to their day. Contribution must therefore be near-zero-effort and embedded in existing workflows - for example capturing a spoken reflection while travelling home from a visit or conference, or using voice to ask for insight during a sport multi-disciplinary team meeting. Testing whether that is achievable, and what people actually do when offered it, is a core purpose of the alpha. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:39 41. What decision process and criteria will UKSI use at the end of alpha to determine whether to proceed to beta or live service development under the same contract? Decision process and criteria for beyond the initial alpha phase have not yet been defined. The alpha's evidence - on user value, adoption and contribution behaviour, technical feasibility, security and governance implications, and whole-life cost - will inform a senior leadership and Board decision, supported by a demonstration before the end of 2026. UKSI also reserves the right to carry out a further procurement exercise before proceeding with any future phase. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:39 42. Is Azure OpenAI already approved? Will UKSI provide Azure subscriptions and development environments? If required, this project is likely to use a separate Azure subscription with access needed by the supplier provided. If required, we would aim to establish this as part of project mobilisation so as not to delay delivery. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:38 43. Who is responsible for maintenance of the solution, approving / reviewing content etc once built? Will this be in-house UKSI resource, or a third-party? How will this be funded? The prototype is not a production system for live use, so there is no ongoing service to maintain at the end of alpha. However, the operating model for a future hub - who maintains it, who curates and reviews content, who supports users, and how it is continuously developed as a product - is one of the questions the alpha must inform. Suppliers should set out realistic operating model options and their whole-life cost implications (maintenance, security, user support, infrastructure, licensing, AI consumption and supplier or in-house resource) as part of the evidence for whether and how UKSI proceeds. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:38 44. Does content require approval before becoming searchable? What level of human review is required? Are domain experts available to judge answer quality? No formal publication approval workflow is mandated for the alpha. The prototype should test lightweight curation and review options and tell us what level of human review a future hub would genuinely need to keep quality and trust high without making contribution burdensome. Domain experts are available to judge answer quality - the GPI project team, UK Sport Performance Advisors and participating sport staff will take part in structured evaluation sessions. It will be important to define appropriate guardrails for what the Performance Hub produces and what is required for these to be established. E.g. to reduce hallucination and build trust. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:38 45. What must the AI actually do? Retrieve information, summarise, compare, recommend, generate plans, identify experts, or all of these? The prototype must go beyond simple Q&A. Specifically it should: ingest diverse qualitative inputs (text, transcripts, reflections, documents, images); structure insight through a shared performance learning framework; surface themes, patterns, tensions and contrasts across sources and sports; support both synthesis and narrative storytelling; apply insight to the user's stated performance context so it becomes actionable (e.g. by comparing to sport-specific content uploaded); identify the source of an insight and point towards the people and expertise behind it ('expertise finder'); and support seamless ongoing, multi-modal capture and access for people across different organisations. Every output must be traceable to its source to build trust and reduce fabrication, and the system must capture citation/usage of information as a measure of value/trust. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:37 46. Will the prototype contain identifiable athlete information? Are there categories of information that must be excluded from the alpha even if synthetic or anonymised data is used, such as athlete medical, selection, performance or commercially sensitive material? We do not envisage identifiable athlete information will be included in the alpha. Excluded categories are: special category personal data (including athlete medical, health, injury and illness records at individual level), athlete selection material. Injury and illness management remains an in-scope theme at the level of practice, approach and lessons learned, not individual athlete records or identifiable information. The architecture and governance patterns proposed must show how such categories could be safely accommodated in a future hub, because a production Performance Hub will need to handle them. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:36 47. What formats are involve? For example Word, PDF, PowerPoint, email, Teams, SharePoint, video, audio, spreadsheets or databases? Are scanned documents or handwritten notes included? And does multimodal output mean text, charts, audio, generated reports, or something else? In scope: Word, PDF and PowerPoint documents, spreadsheets and lists, meeting transcripts, images/photos, limited audio. Scanned documents and handwritten notes are not expected in the prototype, though an approach that could accommodate them later is welcome. By multi-modal output we mean more than a chat answer: text responses and structured summaries, narrative synthesis, comparison and theme views, charts or simple visualisations, generated briefing-style outputs, and voice/audio interaction where it demonstrably reduces the effort of capture or access. The experience must feel like a clear step beyond using Copilot to read a report. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:35 48. Will UKSI provide representative real data after DPIA approval, synthetic data, anonymised data, or a mixture; and who will be responsible for preparing it for prototype use? The intention is to use real material, which requires DPIA and IT Governance approval before any real data is processed. UKSI and UK Sport own the approvals and the decision on what may be used, and will lead data preparation with practical support from the supplier - suppliers should include effort for this in their plan rather than assuming clean data arrives on day one. Special category personal data is excluded from the alpha. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:35 49. What metadata already exists? Are there existing taxonomies, metadata standards, sport-specific vocabularies or tagging conventions that the prototype should use when curating and retrieving knowledge? The Global Performance Insights information has been tagged against a defined 22 sub-topics that roll-up to 4 overall topics. Other information has not been categorised and will have limited metadata. We expect that all information will need to be tagged with additional metadata such as owner, date, input type, content type, domain, confidence, confidentiality. If additional metadata is needed for the prototype - e.g. common vocabulary/glossary, these could be created during the project. Recommending what a durable, system-wide metadata and classification standard should look like is a valuable output of the alpha. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:35 50. Which data sources will be used in this alpha phase? Who owns each data source? The alpha is anchored on the outputs of the Global Performance Insights programme - material captured from visits to high-performing organisations - owned by UK Sport, with the GPI project team as the day-to-day custodian. Secondary sources are limited contributions from the 3-5 participating sports, each owned by that sport, used specifically to test contribution routes and cross-organisation access. Another repository of information captured by UK Sport Performance Advisors based on interaction and engagement with each sport is also expected to form part of the prototype. The ability to demonstrate capture of day-to-day knowledge and insight beyond these projects - e.g. reflections from a conference/project/meeting is also desired as part of the prototype. A small amount of supporting UKSI and UK Sport material may be included where it is needed for a prioritised journey - e.g. lists of people and expertise. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:34 51. What indicative volumes should we assume for the alpha content from each source? What user volumes should be modelled for beta and production? For the alpha, assume a deliberately bounded data set to achieve the prototype objectives - a set of visit notes, insight write-ups, documents, transcripts and, images and a small amount of video drawn from Global Performance Insights. Curently ~3GB and 500 files, exact counts will be confirmed during the project; suppliers should state the volume assumptions their approach depends on. Alpha user numbers are indicatively 20-30. For beta and production modelling, the relevant population is around 3,000 performance staff across 50+ interconnected organisations and up to 50 sport performance programmes, with realistic early adoption in the low hundreds. Potential future cost insight based on those figures is a required alpha output. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:34 52. Can you share any more information on the work done so far, e.g. possible technical architecture? Relevant work to be aware of: - UK Sport have recently defined a new 'System Performance Support' strategy following extensive engagement and consultation on how to best achieve the ambition to continue to 'win and win well' on the world stage. One of the major themes identified was the need for improved adoption and use of data and digital technology to improve decison making and accelerate learning. - A new 'Data & AI Strategic Play' has emerged from this and as part of defining this strategy. Opportunities identified with the highest importance to impact our ambitions included; 'Connect, Collaborate, and Access Sporting System Knowledge', 'Improve decision-making with data', and 'operating with agility to innovate'. This led to the Performance Hub concept and an indicative architecture was defined for illustrative purposes. This included components for authentication, UX/UI, multi-modal data input and system integration, consent, guardrails and retrieval. - Global Performance Insights Project - gathering unstructured information with the intention of sharing knowledge across the sporting system, and recognising the need for something like the Performance Hub to make this possible - Performance Director engagement - confirming importance and priority of system-wide knowledge and insight sharing and data-informed decison-making to impact performance. Additional information on relevant initiatives will be shared with the successful supplier. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:33 53. Do you have a preference of technology for the Hub? You mention current Microsoft Azure environment, is the preference to have a Microsoft based solution? There is no mandated technology stack. The sporting system runs on Microsoft 365, Copilot and Azure, and UKSI holds an existing Azure tenant plus Microsoft 365 and Power Platform licensing, so there is a preference for approaches that leverage those entitlements where appropriate. Suppliers may propose alternative or complementary components where they better achieve the alpha outcomes, provided they comply with UK Sport and UKSI IT and cyber security standards, meet UK data residency expectations, and can be justified on whole-life cost and sustainability grounds. The prototype phase must tell us what the right technology direction is. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:31 54. Are there known cultural or organisational barriers to contribution and knowledge sharing that the prototype should explicitly test, beyond the technical feasibility of capture and retrieval? Yes, and testing them is explicitly in scope - the alpha exists to test cultural as well as technical assumptions. The barriers we expect the prototype to probe include: willingness to share knowledge across sports that also compete for funding and advantage; the 'what do I get back' question that determines whether contribution is sustained; the effort of contributing at all for people with no spare capacity; trust in AI-generated output; the extent to which the solution informs performance conversations and improves decisions; sensitivity and confidentiality expectations, including who can see a contribution and whether attribution or anonymity matters; and each organisation's own governance and assurance expectations about information leaving its systems. Evidence on contribution pathways and the practical, behavioural, governance and security barriers to them is a required outcome of the alpha. Success might mean we are not just collecting insight as individuals which is where the journey ends, instead we are sharing, connecting and cross pollinating across our system - we are learning from it, cumulatively and intentionally. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:30 55. We are aware that it states "training associated with a full rollout" is out of scope, but is it assumed that the participating organisations will have to be "trained" on how to use the prototype? If so, how many people and what time and effort do you anticipate this being? Correct - training and change management for a full rollout are out of scope. Light-touch onboarding for prototype participants is expected and should be included: assume an indicative 20-30 participants, a short orientation session plus simple written or video guidance. Ease of use is itself one of the hypotheses under test, so the amount of explanation participants need is a finding we want from the prototype. If a journey cannot be used with minimal instruction, that is important evidence for the future concept. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:30 56. Which user groups should be involved in discovery, prototype testing and show-and-tells, and what level of access can suppliers expect to end users during the alpha? Primary users: Performance Directors, Head Coaches and Heads of Performance Support from participating UK Sport-funded sports; UK Sport Performance Advisors; and selected UKSI and UK Sport staff. Key stakeholders to engage include the Global Performance Insights project team, the Sporting System Membership project team, and UK Sport/UKSI IT and Data Protection teams. UKSI will define and recruit participants. Suppliers should plan for a small, senior and time-poor cohort (indicatively 20-30 named users) with realistic access to: co-design workshops at the start, iterative usability sessions through delivery, fortnightly show-and-tells, and a final demonstration. Sessions should be short and flexible, with everyone involved geographically dispersed. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:29 57. How many organisations in the sporting system would be involved in the prototype stage? Do you have an initial idea of which organisations would be involved? UK Sport and UKSI, plus representatives from approximately 3-5 sport organisations. Those sports will be drawn from the sports already involved in a project gathering insight to be used as one of the main sources of data for this prototype, so that participants have direct familiarity with the source material. UKSI and UK Sport will confirm the named organisations and will secure their participation; the supplier coordinates scheduling and runs the sessions. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:28 58. What are the main outcomes that would make the alpha a success for UKSI? Are measurable success criteria already defined for user value, trust and contribution? Success is measured by the quality of evidence and learning generated. The prototype must test four core assumptions behind the Performance Hub concept: (1) people will contribute valuable information that benefits others, creating a self-sustaining virtuous cycle; (2) better use and sharing of the sporting system's collective information produces genuinely valuable insight that improves decision making and accelerates learning; (3) advances in AI make capture, curation and access to structured and unstructured information seamless for users across organisations; and (4) the Performance Hub can sustainably and securely operate as a product on behalf of all sporting system organisations and evolve with technology and user needs. It is likely that different user groups will measure success in different ways and this variance should be defined as part of the project. Specific measurable criteria for user value, trust and contribution are not yet defined - defining and evidencing them is part of the work, and proposals should set out how you would do this. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:28 59. Which priority user journeys must be demonstrated in the prototype? Are the use cases for the prototype those highlighted in the 'Users & their needs' section, or a subset of these? All five high-level use cases are in scope for the prototype: (1) easily access insight collated from across the sporting system; (2) have trusted insight applied to my own performance context (e.g. uploading sport specific data or performance problem; (3) identify the source of insight and find expertise; (4) seamlessly capture new information on an ongoing basis; and (5) as a UK Sport Performance Advisor, make sense of knowledge gathered from engagement with sports. We expect a short co-design phase will refine and prioritise the detailed journeys within these five. For the prototype phase, we have a repository of information collected and produced by a separate project that is gathering insight on high performing organisations and includes pre-defined topics (see more information below). Other information for the prototype could include notes and insights from engagement with sports by UK Sport Performance Advisors, and information captured by sport staff, for example when visiting LA to prepare for the next Olympic and Paralympic Games. Last Updated: 10 August 2026, 06:20