The UK’s Department for International Trade (DIT) is looking for new data to inform an ongoing supply chain mapping project, for a prototype that already includes several government and eight commercial data sets.
With potentially up to £2 million available to build out the Global Supply Chains Intelligence Pilot (GSCIP) DIT says it already has “around 25 analysts testing specific use cases across the six departments” and expects more.
In a Public Information Notice it said wants to “hear from companies that already have regularly updated data sets that can be used for supply chain mapping of products, businesses, geolocations, and the risks associated with those” for the project -- which features graph database capabilities (including from supplier Altana), specialist data visualisation software, and analysis tools that use Spark SQL, Python and R-based queries.
The GSCIP pilot is being led by DIT and supported by five other departments.
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The department emphasised it is not “commissioning new research and are only interested in existing data sets that can be provided to us complete, or extracts based on our specified products, entities, or geolocations.”
Suppliers will need to be able to furnish the data for upload into DIT IT infrastructure via an “API, SFTP, or S3 buckets” with the government department noting that “due to the sensitivity of the data on the platform (both government and other companies’ data), data sets will need to be approved by government data assurance processes including ISO27001 or equivalent, an ability to show evidence of a strong security posture, Data Protection Impact Assessments and cyber security checks (which may include penetration testing by a CHECK service provider), and other Government Information Risk and Cyber Security assurance processes.
The £2 million is a best estimate. DIT said it expects confirmation of funding for the continuation of the GSCIP in December 2022 and “will have limited time to procure the required data and data tools before the current agreements end in March 2023. For this reason, we are only engaging with suppliers that already have the data that we require so that they can be procured in March 2023 and available for use in April 2023.”
It expects to publish a contract notice by December 1.
