Nesta, alongside a consortium of public and philanthropic funders, is currently scoping a forthcoming early years innovation initiative designed to strengthen the UK’s parenting and home learning environment (P&HLE) ecosystem. The initiative focuses on three mutually reinforcing workstreams:

1. Programme improvement: supporting programme developers to strengthen programme design, increase family engagement, and build evaluation readiness.
2. Evaluation: enabling robust impact and implementation evaluations of P&HLE programmes in real-world settings.
3. Evidence mobilisation: translating evidence into actionable guidance to help local authority commissioners and practitioners implement programmes that best match local family needs.

To provide foundational intelligence for our Early Years Innovation Initiative, we are commissioning a comprehensive three-phase, mixed-methods research project to uncover the on-the-ground realities, barriers, and needs surrounding the development, commissioning, and delivery of parenting support in England.

The chosen organisation will consult P&HLE developers, local authority early years teams, and families via broad surveys, in-depth focus groups and interviews, and targeted follow-up research. Suppliers must recruit a diverse sample across participant groups, intentionally weighted toward economic disadvantage for families. Final deliverables include a final report and external-facing summary. 

The contract will run from 15 January 2027 to 30 April 2027. Please note the awarding of the contract is subject to final funding confirmation from our funding partner. We anticipate having this confirmation in place by the project start date.

Nesta is the project lead, and we expect the successful organisation to work collaboratively with us, integrating our feedback on research design, data collection tools, and preliminary findings.

We're looking for an organisation that can demonstrate:

• exceptional domain expertise in applied research, programme evaluation, the early years system, and parenting programmes.
• a robust, tailored mixed-methods approach capable of achieving high participant engagement and sampling targets across participant groups. 
• a credible delivery timeline and project management strategy to help ensure outputs are finalised by 30 April 2027, within a maximum budget of £120,000 (excluding VAT).

Written proposals should respond to the requirements laid out in Annex 1 of the ITT, together with requested attachments.

Your entire proposal, including all supporting documentation, should be addressed to Simran Motiani and emailed to [email protected] by no later than 11:00 am GMT on 1 December 2026.

Please read the full ITT and Annex 1 for complete details, including the evaluation criteria, terms and conditions, and full scope of services. If you have a specific question not answered in the ITT or its annexes, please email [email protected].