Innovation Marketplace

The Commercial Innovation Hub (CIH) is a cross-government centre of excellence that is pioneering new approaches to service design and procurement, established to drive procurement of innovation across government and the wider public sector. The CIH was created in the context of the Procurement Act 2023 coming into force and is framed as a joint DSIT–GCA initiative announced as part of the National Procurement Policy Statement.

The CIH will tackle a persistent set of barriers that limit procurement-led innovation Traditional procurement approaches are not suited for acquiring novel technologies and not always accessible for SMEs and Start Ups” and there is a perceived risk culture that limits “psychological safety to ‘fail fast’”. The CIH rationale highlights the need to improve awareness and practical use of “commercial innovation opportunities” through briefs, tools and templates, and to help departments pilot innovations and contract with new supply chains.

This agreement will provide a marketplace for public sector buyers to access suppliers who specialise in innovation covering a wide range of services.

As part of the collaboration with DSIT, this will be preceded by collaboration areas, referred to as Digital Commercial Innovation Hub. In these sandboxes problems and solutions will be reviewed and the Innovation Marketplace will then provide the contractual route for any potential solutions that are taken forward to delivery. This part of the proposition will be owned and delivered by DSIT. There is no physical (IT solution or otherwise) between the Hub and Innovation Marketplace Dynamic Market

When contacting GCA regarding this agreement, please ensure that you reference the agreement details in all correspondence