Engagement process description
Cardiff University is commencing early market engagement to inform the development of its upcoming procurement for the supply of Online Programme Management (OPM) services on a pay per service basis.
The University is currently undertaking a programme of work to provide the necessary insights and lay the groundwork for a strategic approach to fully online post graduate taught portfolio development and delivery, with a proposed start date for the first phase of the portfolio being September 2027.
The pre-market engagement exercise will seek to:
• To establish the level of interest in the tender opportunity
• Provide suppliers with insights into the proposal for Cardiff University to launch a fully online portfolio.
• To gain an understanding of your experience of similar contracts, incorporating any lessons learnt to drive improvements.
• Gain insight into the current OPM marketplace and emerging trends.
• Understand the range of services available on a modular or pay-per-service basis.
• Explore different commercial and contractual arrangements, including alternatives to traditional revenue-share models.
• Understand supplier capability and capacity to support online postgraduate portfolio growth.
• Understand approaches to student recruitment, marketing, retention, learner support and analytics.
• Explore innovative approaches to programme design, development and delivery.
• Inform the design, scope and structure of a future procurement exercise.
• Ensure that any forthcoming procurement exercise is suitably aligned to institutional priorities and supplier expectations.
The pre-market engagement event will be held at 11:00 – 12:00 on Wednesday, 12 August. This will be a presentation delivered by Cardiff University to potential suppliers to provide background to Cardiff University and our expectation of this need.
Suppliers interested in attending the pre-market engagement event must complete and return the registration form via the correspondence function on the Universities e-tender portal In-Tend.
https://in-tendhost.co.uk/cardiffuniversity/
Suppliers will be limited to 2 attendees. The session will be anonymised so that attendees will remain unknown to other participants. The deadline for registering attendance at the event is 12 noon on Tuesday 4th August 2026. Teams invitations will be issued once this deadline has passed. The University reserves the right to reject an application to attend sent after this time.
All presentation documentation, questions and answers will be published on the e-tendering portal following the pre-market engagement event.
Following this presentation, a questionnaire will be published on the tendering portal to gain insights from suppliers. The deadline for returning this questionnaire is Friday 21st August 2026. The University reserves the right to reject an application to attend sent after this time.
This stage does not formally commence a procurement process. Participation in this pre-market engagement is voluntary and will not provide any advantage or disadvantage in any subsequent tender process.
The University anticipates refining the scope, service levels, data requirements, performance metrics, and commercial structure following this Pre Market Engagement.
Insights gained will inform the final tender documentation.