Notice

Populating the World of Training: Frequently Asked Questions

Updated 27 April 2023

1. General Questions

Q: Can I submit multiple proposals?

A: Yes, providing you have capacity to support all proposals if they were all funded.

Q: Can a non-UK company send proposals? Or do we need to partner with a UK entity?

A: Non-UK companies can submit proposals, we also accept proposals from individuals and academia.

We also welcome collaborations, this includes with UK companies. We are currently running a collaboration survey until 24th April. Details of the survey are circulated weekly with other suppliers who complete the survey.

Q: Will the Q&A and slides from the Webinar be published on the DASA website?

A: Please take a look at the attachments included on the Populating the World of Training competition webpage, we have added the presentation slides and frequently asked questions. Please sign up to alerts to keep updated on this competition.

Q: If you are part of an existing STP consortium, can you still apply for this?

A: Yes, the two activities are separate. Bidders are asked to ensure that there is sufficient capacity in their workforce to deliver all the tasks.

Q: Can I submit a proposal that links to a current submission that is part of a different competition?

A: No, bidders should submit proposals which can stand on their own and are not dependant on other work being successful or not.

There may be rare occasions when we may look to link projects if there is a cost benefit. However, different competitions have different funding customers, priorities and timescales, it may not be practical to expect to join separate projects together.

Q: If you receive separate but complimentary proposals, would you look to pair organisations to form a joint activity?

A: Not at this initial stage, we would not make a fund decision with the condition that innovators are expected to join their separate proposals.

The Army team may look to cohere research activities where there are demonstrable benefits to avoid duplication of engagement with stakeholders or where we see obvious synergies where integration/collaboration may be beneficial. This will not be obligatory.

We would like willing partnerships to have already thought about how they could work together and have agreements in place to submit joint proposals.

If you are interested in submitting a joint bid but have not already found a partner, please consider responding to the current Collaboration Survey, it will be running until 24th April. Details of the survey are circulated weekly with other potential suppliers who complete the survey.

Q: Are you expecting suppliers to team up or are you after discrete offerings which you can then assemble into a whole service?

A: Both are of interest. One of the key reasons we are running this Themed Competition is that we will be able to fund multiple capability development activity contracts at once, which will give us a greater range of capabilities. This approach is better than tackling a single problem with a single solution. Instead, all areas can be improved at the same time to develop a range of different capabilities.

Submitting as part of a consortium or individually is acceptable. We recognise there is work to do on our side to determine what we want to fund to ensure we can integrate those systems to deliver a holistic benefit. We are open to submissions in either way – individual innovation teams or collaborated innovations.

Q: How will the different offerings be integrated - is there an integration definition?

A: The Army is not explicitly looking to integrate the activities funded under this DASA challenge. However, innovators should be mindful that A3E capabilities that are eventually brought into service will need to be able to integrate with other MOD systems and services, i.e. plug and play capabilities. The MOD is unable to procure capabilities that only work with proprietary systems or do not adhere to the principles of Defence Modelling & Simulation Compliance. See JSP 939 for further information.

Q: How much support does the Prime need to put into the DASA DTEP scheme?

A: The Defence Technology Exploitation Programme (DTEP) scheme is separate from this competition.

The DTEP scheme offers individual grants of up to 50% of a project’s value – to a maximum of £500,000 per grant - will be available through DTEP for collaborative projects between SMEs and larger suppliers, supporting the integration of novel technologies, materials, and processes into MOD’s supply chains.

Please check out the DASA DTEP webpage for details of how to apply.

2. Competition Challenge Questions

Q: This looks like an exciting opportunity but the four challenges and explanations are in defence speak. Can clearer versions be provided?

A: We hope that the Populating the World of Training competition document and briefings given by the Army personnel during the presentation, brought the challenges to life and are now accessible to innovators without military experience as they can be considering the complexity of the subject matter. If you struggle to understand any particular part of the challenges, including acronyms, please feel free to seek clarity from your local Innovation Partner.

Q: The “hostility” of civilians can only be ascertained by information gathering activities. Can this function be integrated into a Challenge 2 proposal?

A: Yes, this is something that we would consider as part of Challenge 2.

Q: Would you prefer proposals to align to single challenge areas, or would you be happy to see a single proposal that might span a number of challenges or elements?

A: We know that this will be a holistic enterprise, not everything will fit neatly into a single challenge. Match your proposal to the competition challenge or challenges that your proposal largely aligns with and we will understand that we may need support from the other challenge teams, that’s perfectly fine. We welcome proposals that deal with discrete elements or subsets of the challenges.

If you need help with competition challenges, please take advice from your Innovation Partner.

3. Competition Scope Questions

Q: From a 12 month project, are you looking for a proof of concept or full product(s)?

A: We anticipate outputs up to and including Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6.

• TRL 3: analytical and experimental critical function or characteristic proof-of-concept
• TRL 4: technology basic validation in a laboratory environment
• TRL 5: technology basic validation in a relevant environment
• TRL 6: technology model or prototype demonstration in a relevant environment

We recommend that bidders articulate the anticipated in/out TRL in their proposal.

Q: Is there a timeline available for down select and when project delivery is expected to start and complete by (rough estimate is fine)?

A: We aim for successful projects to be on contract by August 2023. We expect projects to take a maximum of 12 months from start date. Full details on dates for each stage are found here on Gov.uk.

Q: Would a novel user authentication mechanism for digital and physical access control for communications resilience be in scope?

A: No, although it sounds like it would be relevant in other areas. It would be too tangential for what we are looking for as part of the A3E competition.

Q: Would ability to position observers “virtually” in a non-invasive manner in training ex, with ability monitor & record for post event analysis be of interest?

A: Yes, submissions of this manner would be of interest.

Q: Please explain what you mean by Single Synthetic Environment (SSE). How does this differ to a Federation? Or a Platform approach described in the FCTS paper?

A: There is more to the platform approach than SSE. There are four elements to the platform approach; the computer hardware consisting of the platform itself, the drafting board that enable the tools to be integrated and employed, the toolset (which is the technical modelling), and the user interface. All of these elements as a coherent platform enable us to provide a SSE. It is important to distinguish between that environment and the framework, the platform and the four components of that platform.

Q: How do you see Machine Learning (ML) being used to act as A3E players?

A: ML is a huge opportunity, we’ve experimented with ChatGPT and others and know we need to be mindful of ML. The simple answer is currently we don’t know the extent to which ML can help us or how it would be used to act as or assist A3E players. We are hoping there are innovators out there that can put forward proposals that showcase the benefits of ML in this field and can submit them in response to the competition challenges. It is clear that ML is something we need to try to incorporate, we’d be pleased if you can help us with that.

Q: Surprised that urban isn’t on the Top Twelve list - does that mean that more urban based issues are of less interest in the competition?

A: The Top Twelve have been taken from the Lessons Exploitation Cell Threat Symposium and are designed to enable the Field Army to ‘counter the pacing threat’. Urban is a context in which those threats will operate. From a CTTP perspective, enhancing urban facilities is important and we are keen to receive proposals that will support this – but as context for the A3E, not specifically the focus.

Q: What is the current status/setting regarding A3E in support of CTG at the present time - on other programmes such as HANNIBAL etc?

A: We have systems in place already to replicate the A3E environment which we do enhance regularly but there are constraints on bringing certain components together for a number of reasons, including but not limited to, existing contractual limitations. While we have many systems available to utilise, they can be hard to integrate. This is particularly true for gathering data in many areas, such as learning and performance. We don’t have a perfect solution in many areas. Although we can do many things, we cannot do certain things as well as we want. There is opportunity at an individual level and at a system level.

Q: Do you envision a central library for entities (weapon systems, objects, etc.) with standard characteristics and performance for reuse in LVC environments?

A: We are already doing this in a number of publications and are continuing to refine this. Perhaps this could potentially be shared if appropriate, but this is already existing or being refined as we speak.

There are challenges here, but the extra bound is to join together some of the elements which are currently separated into stove pipes or by contractual/SQEP reasons. Or even the practicality of commercial firewalls or Soldiers and Civil Servants working together using different equipment; this doesn’t mean what we have today is not good enough, that is not the challenge, the challenge is not just to look for the innovation but to ensure they can be implemented. Having the power of a strategic training partner alongside Army is an effective way of making a more efficient service.

Although this question is about a central library, one should think of the FCTS as an efficient, single entity of symbiotic organism of strategic training partner and Army that blends all these things together to provide an effective service.

Q: What GFX will be available? If I understand the previous answer about entities they could be provided. Who do we contact for those and when are they available?

A: GFX will be provided as soon as practicable after contract award. It is not possible to provide a full list of everything that is available due to the breadth and depth of the challenge. The Army team will endeavour to provide access to as much GFX as is appropriate for each successful submission. We urge innovators to carefully consider their GFX requirements and list them as comprehensively as possible in their submissions, along with risk mitigation statements on how the proposal can still deliver if the requested GFX is not available.

Q: DIO are contracting to enhance urban facilities through Landmarc - is this linked to this effort?

A: There is no link at present.

Q: There have been contracts under CTTP (with Hadean and Improbable) doing similar things. What are you looking for that is different to these?

A: While the CTTP did use other companies, we weren’t using them to stimulate the A3E market in the way in which we’re doing now. This DASA competition will break new ground in the use of the platform approach; combining the user interface, toolset and computer hardware to create a Single Synthetic Environment (SSE).

Before doing this we need to do initial work to prove the concepts and viability of this work. Hadean and Improbable have done some really helpful work that will be at the heart of our programme. Elements of their work did use A3E but we are now interested in stacking our shelves with a selection of broad solutions that represent the live/physical environment.

Q: The Army already has capabilities (i.e. Indirect Fires, Logistics models, comms degradation) that it won’t use. Why ask for more of what you can’t use?

A: This is a fair challenge. There may well be existing capabilities that we are not making the most of due to working practices such as technical issues, commercial elements, and limits on training time etc.

As a result of this competition, we want to be able to offer a combination of a range of things to excite the market, the training models and integrated service provision we will have from our strategic training partner and will address those issues.

We are asking for a catalyst of A3E ideas which will fill the catalogue of options available to our future training partners, this is the difference within these competition challenges.

Q: How does this work link within service simulation provision, Project FENRIR, Project HANNIBAL and Project NUMIDIAN?

A: It’s important to note that there’s a close relationship between the Army’s Collective Training Group (CTG) and CTTP, between setting requirements and delivering training. CTG has updated the necessary requirements in the short term ahead of delivery in 2025.

Field Army can’t sit still today waiting for delivery to arrive tomorrow, but there is a synergy between the two. The Future Collective Training System (FCTS) will absorb the outputs that these projects provide to pull into future programmes. Whatever the capability is, CTTP will look to utilise it in the most appropriate way.

Q: How is the team going to ensure that the training environment reflects the current capabilities of the Field Army within A3E?

A: I believe the question is describing the environment to mean the context and the picture that we pitch the Field Army against, arguably could be the Field Army’s capabilities. The question could be warning that we are not setting requirements beyond what the field Army can handle, either due to size or lack of capability or training performance as there are other elements to consider with training such as workforce and vehicles etc.

We are relaxed about the definition of Field Army, but the proposed idea needs to relate to the 26 services spoken about in the presentation today. This enables the Field Army to see how it is pitched against the Future Operating Environment, to enable it to manage risk effectively, objectively and be in a position to test and adjust the Field Army structures to meet the requirements.

Q: Is there a corpus of effects or vehicle / profiles that can be used? i.e. - a synthetic dataset. Ditto for other simulated capabilities?

A: Yes, the MOD holds a repository of synthetic representations of vehicles and weapon effects that can be made available to successful bidders as GFX. However, it is not an exhaustive set and mostly in VBS2/3 format. Bidders should list their GFX requirements as explicitly as possible, including a risk mitigation statement on how the proposal can still deliver if the requested GFX is not available.