DN773311 Met Office Academic Partnership (MOAP) Science Delivery Framework 2

Lot 1 covers the Joint Chair Services that the academic partner will be supplying to the Met Office. Each University who successfully is awarded a place on the Framework will be expected to provide Joint Chair Services. Each academic partner will receive £50,000 per annum for Joint Chair Services. The academic partner should select a suitable individual or individuals via an appropriate process to provide the Joint Chair Services ready for the 1 April 2026 start date. The Joint Chair Services can be provided by up to two individuals sharing the Joint Chair role in addition to any necessary supporting staff.

Lot 2 covers co-sponsorship agreements which enable the Met Office to co-sponsor a researcher at a MOAP university that provides support to key scientific priorities. Lot 2 will be available to each University who successfully is awarded a place on the Framework, these agreements are not guaranteed and how these are issued is a decision on best fit and business need and these call-offs will be on an as and when basis during the framework duration.

This lot focuses on the ability to capture measurements of the physical, chemical and/or biological environment and to extract benefit from observations within weather and climate national capability, products and services. The Met Office is charting an ambitious path to enhance its observational capability to meet the growing demands and opportunities of the 2030s and beyond. We want to drive stronger exploitation of observations across nowcasting, numerical weather prediction, marine forecasting, climate and operational meteorology applications; deliver new observations that fill priority capability gaps and meet the evolving needs of future prediction systems; and develop and enhance the resilience of our own observing networks.

The ability to simulate or emulate the physical, chemical and/or biological environment within a given domain and specific context. Prediction and Projection is a core component of the National Capability that allows the Met Office and its partners to produce modelled states of the current and future environment and Earth system. This includes but is not limited to the systems and models that deliver environmental prediction data on timescales of hours to years ahead and produce projection datasets of past, present, counterfactual and future climate states for time horizons of years to centuries. It also includes the research and development required to enhance these predictions and projections and the models that they rely on. The Met Office is internationally renowned for this capability and seeks partnership to complement its expertise in the skills needed to deliver and develop it further.

Post-Processing and Analysis (PP&A) uses science and technology to pull through innovation to user impact. PP&A encompasses all ways to transform environmental data by modifying scientific characteristics, making it more useful and usable for a range of general-purpose and specific use-cases. PP&A adds value and accuracy to forecasts and make them useable for a wide range of applications in the UK and worldwide. Taking inputs from National Capability Observations and Prediction & Projection, this lot is truly multidisciplinary, leveraging both physical and social sciences alongside computing, mathematics and applied technology to transform data and satisfy different use cases. It focuses on techniques and approaches to improve data usefulness and accuracy for weather, seasonal and climate products and services. This lot provides a route to impact for new science, ensuring prediction data ends up helping users both inside and outside the Met Office.

Data supply provides the ability to store, manage, and supply observation, prediction and projection, and post-processed data. It ensures that data is discoverable, accessible, and useful to consumers of the data. We make data available through third-party national and global data platforms. The Data Supply Capability facilitates data being shared between the other three capabilities in the National Capability Domain and with Products and Services to the outside world.

This lot focuses on research to support delivering impact and benefit to our customers and users through valuable digital and expert-delivered products and services. The Met Office delivers a wide portfolio of services to a broad range of customers. Our operational meteorologists conduct a range of tasks requiring them to apply their expertise through the detailed analysis of observations and forecast products. Our forecast products draw on large volumes of data to enable our operational meteorologists to support their customers. We envisage that academic partners could usefully contribute to research for the Products and Services Capability by enhancing and accelerating work already underway within the Met Office and bringing new skillsets and concepts in order to develop new capabilities.

The cross MOAP competition Lot has been added to provide a route for requirements that don't fit into one Lot or requires a collaborative approach with a consortium of MOAP Universities to deliver the requirements. Work will also be competed across all MOAP Universities on this Lot if there is a nil return on a Lot specific competition.