Third Party Admissions System

The University is looking to work with a commercial partner to support admissions decision-making, with scope to consider verification and conversion support. This work would cover the next three admissions cycles, with the first intake being September 2025.

The University of Edinburgh seeks to enhance the Future Student experience both in speed of decision turnaround and in the qualitative experience of all applicants whether they receive an offer or not. This is to support our delivery of institutional student population strategic objectives, and to ensure our future student experience is in line with our world class standing. The University is looking to work with a commercial partner to support admissions decision-making, with scope to consider verification and conversion support. This work would cover the next three admissions cycles, with the first intake being September 2025. The third-party admissions service should support to admissions teams at the University of Edinburgh, to provide more concentrated and flexible support in peak periods, and allow for University of Edinburgh Admissions staff to focus on specialist, value-added activity. This should also enable offer making to be delivered in a timely manner. This would likely include:

• Identification and completion of missing data;
• Identification of ineligible applicants;
• Identification of applicants who are highly competitive and should be considered further by admissions teams; and
• Requesting documentation post-offer, to confirm whether the applicant has met their conditions of offer.

This would primarily be undertaken by staff from the supplier, who are trained by the University of Edinburgh. These staff will be granted access the University’s systems to support this activity. This will include the use of the University’s student records system, EUCLID (SITS). Access is cloud based through multi factor authentication and a VPN should be utilised for any work undertaken off campus. Information will be shared through Microsoft 365 products and supplier staff will be invited to relevant admissions team meetings to ensure accurate and successful completion of work to SLAs.

Data protection standards must be met to ensure safety and security of applicant data.

The buyer is using PCS-Tender to conduct this ITT exercise. The Project code is 27190. For more information see: http://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/info/InfoCentre.aspx?ID=2343

Community benefits are included in this requirement. For more information see: https://www.gov.scot/policies/public-sector-procurement/community-benefits-in-procurement/

A summary of the expected community benefits has been provided as follows:

The University of Edinburgh’s Strategy 2030 sets out our vision to make the world a better place, and a key focus is our Social and Civic Responsibility. We contribute positively to society through our research, innovation and education. We also recognise that as a large organisation, how we do things can have both positive and negative impacts on people, communities, and the natural environment near and far. This plan shows how we will deliver on our commitments to Social & Civic Responsibility as part of the University’s Strategy 2030 and our commitments to the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We would like to know how the work of your organisation can contribute and help us towards achieving our strategic objectives, and/or the SDGs more broadly. Please detail any areas where your organisation can (and pledge to, if successful in winning this contract) work with UoE to achieve positive CB outcomes.