Official UK procurement notice
Space Weather R2O Maintenance - University of Reading
Authority: Met Office (Central government)
What is being bought
Published requirement description'Space Weather Implementation, Measurement, Modelling and Risk' (SWIMMR), was a £19.9m UKRI SPF funded programme led by STFC from 2019, and which largely concluded in 2023. Several of the projects were targeted at space weather scientific modelling gaps, with the aim of bringing them into operation for forecast capabilities in the Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre (MOSWOC). The project 'S3' stood up systems and enabled collaboration between academic partners and the Met Office space weather programme, bringing a platform 'sandbox environment' and portal for monitoring outputs into use at the Met Office (MO) where our scientists worked with several academic partners to bring their models into use.
Whilst the original SWIMMR programme made this collaboration possible, there is much work remaining to bring the models into working operational use by the target date of September 2026, the Research to Operations to Research (R2O2R) project is the next stage in this Programme.
The Space Weather CSA with the Department for Science and Technology (DSIT) sets out a required output for the Met Office to Support the validation, integration and exploitation of new capabilities and data delivered through the SPF SWIMMR Programme.
Met Office Space Weather (MOSW) has agreed with funding partner DSIT to deliver several targets for the next phase of work:
Evidence of user need and user requirement to shape model use and output (MOSWOC being the primary user, with several end-users being the recipients of forecasting products).
Technical and scientific requirements within MOSW for fully onboarding, working with and supporting the models and/or their outputs in operational settings. (Whilst the 'S3' platform and portal were helpful for the early stages of model collaboration, they are not able to support long term model and output development and operation).
In terms of the projects to achieve modelling capability, we have agreed a number of these and their priority levels with the academic institutions who own the models.
The lotProcurement structure
single lot · no lot value publishedProcedure terms & legal framework
From the official record- Procedure method
- Direct award
- Legal basis
- UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
- Notice status
- Awarded without competition
- Procurement threshold
- Unspecified in notice
- Regulatory regime
- Standard
- Commercial structure
- Stand-alone contract (no framework)
- Competition type
- Direct award (no call for competition)
- GPA / WTO covered
- Unspecified in notice
- Recurring procurement
- Unspecified in notice
- First published
- 2 Jul 2026, 15:37 BST
- Last source update
- 2 Jul 2026, 15:41 BST
- Authority reference
FASTER- FTS notice number
2026/S 000-062412- Latest notice
- Contract award notice (UK6)
- Delivery area
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-06c2aeFind a Tender
- Why no open competition
- Single Suppliers Intellectual Property Exclusive Rights; Single Suppliers Technical Reasons
- Published justification
The deliverables within this contract are directly associated with models and code that have been developed and are owned by the partner (supplier) to a defined level of maturity under the SWIMMR Programme. The partner retains the intellectual property rights (IPR) for the model code and provides access to the Met Office under licence. As such, the partner is uniquely positioned to deliver the required maintenance, support and enhancement services.
The purpose of the contract is to ensure the continued operation, maintenance and incremental improvement of the models within the Met Office Space Weather service. This work requires detailed technical understanding of the model architecture, development history and underlying scientific methodologies, all of which reside with the original developers at Reading.
Continued support of the models is dependent on access to both the proprietary codebase and the specialist expertise held by Reading. Replicating this capability with an alternative supplier would require significant time, cost and risk, and would introduce unacceptable impacts to operational continuity and model performance.
In summary, due to the proprietary nature of the model code and the reliance on expert knowledge held by Reading, there is no alternative supplier capable of delivering these services. The Met Office therefore requires access to the code and expertise that are solely held by Reading to ensure the ongoing operation and reliability of the service.
How it was run
Official notice- Submission deadline
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Timeline
2 Jul 2026 → 15 Jul 2026 · 2 dates- Notice published118 days ago2 Jul 2026, 15:41 BST
- Standstill ends104 days ago15 Jul 2026, 23:59 BST
Notice history
3 events · 2 releases on Find a Tender · since 2 Jul 2026- Transparency notice published2 Jul 2026, 15:37 BSTUK5
- Contract award notice published2 Jul 2026, 15:41 BSTUK6
- Contract signature expected16 Jul 2026, 23:59 BSTscheduled
Commercial outcome & contract awards
Published awards, contracts and bid statistics, not a forecast| Awarded to | Value | Date | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY OF READING17 Jul 2026 – 31 Mar 2027 · up to 31 Mar 2030Extensions: 3 annual extensions | £164,880 | 1 Jul 2026standstill to 15 Jul 2026 | Standstill |
Contracting authority & participating public bodies
Bidders & participating suppliers
1 commercial party on the notice- The university of ReadingAwarded supplier
Official documents & specifications (2)
Official links; attachments are not copiedNotices published for this procedure
- Contract award notice Contract award notice on Find a Tender
- Transparency notice Transparency notice on Find a Tender