Sectors
Defence
RED provides services to the MoD and its Agencies, including Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S), the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), the Defence Nuclear Organisation (DNO) and the Submarine Delivery Agency (SDA) . Much of the work conducted by RED consists of Research and Development or Technical Support away from the Customers’ sites on a fixed price basis. The mainstay of the work is technical studies, analysis and support, secure systems and software development undertaken by our growing in-house team but also utilising sub-contracts from amongst members of the RED Network. RED is an active supplier to the EDP, ASTRID and SERAPIS programmes.
This type of work contributes to a large percentage of RED’s revenue and we are increasingly forming new teams to respond to new customer challenges.
In addition, RED undertakes MoD-related work on customer sites through Resource Enabling Contracts such as the Crown Commercial Public Sector Resourcing Framework. These contracting vehicles exists to service peak technical resource demands which cannot be resourced by MoD internally. RED maintains a large pool of security cleared technical resources to support this demand as well as providing the business with excellent resources to support project teams.
Central Government & Agencies
RED has undertaken work for a number of central government departments and government Agencies including Department of Transport, DEFRA, Home Office, Cabinet Office, the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), Department for Business, Innovation and Skills/DTI, Ministry of Justice and Department for Transport, WRAP and Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). RED is a member of the FUTRAN consortium providing support to Highways England via SPaTS2. Offerings include secure data and analytics, operational and statistical analysis, qualitative and quantitative analysis, Open-source Intelligence (OSINT) gathering, data modelling and a range of other decision support services.
RED has supported the BBC and has a long track record of support to the Rutherford Appleton Laboratories with Operational Research, Mathematical Modelling and Safety consultancy.
UK Industry
Much of RED’s work for UK Industry is within the Defence and Security Sector, with the ultimate Customer being the UK Government. Within the Research area, larger contracts often stipulate that a percentage of the work should be undertaken by SMEs and as a result RED is a regular research partner to many prime organisations.
The two main Defence Primes for MoD Research funding are QinetiQ and BAE Systems and both seek to include a number of SMEs in their proposals. Thus, RED are members of 4 BAE Systems and 3 QinetiQ-led Research programmes.
RED also provides cost effective support to System Integrators and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) ensuring Safety, Environmental and Supportability compliance throughout the acquisition cycle.
Environmental Support
RED has a track record of support in this sector including Land Quality Assessment, Flood and Contamination, Waste, Carbon, air quality and Green initiatives. Our work focuses on data and analytics, Operational Research including quantitative and qualitative analysis, tool development and modelling and OSINT data services. We also have a long track record of conducting studies in areas relating to waste, recycling and energy.
Worldwide Aviation & Defence
RED Scientific’s personnel have world-class expertise with Airborne Delivery of stores and troops to the battlefield. As specialists with all UK MOD in-Service Airborne Equipment systems and their principles of operation, RED Scientific can offer a broad range of advice from their skilled Airborne Equipment Engineers and experienced users.
We also undertake studies and ongoing assessment for Aerodrome environments including annual surveys, Pavement/runway friction, measured height, system safety and Land Quality Assessment with our partner organisation Pell Frischmann.
European Research
European Commission research projects are an important area for RED with the company winning and acting as coordinator on four major contracts and gaining valuable insight into the bidding formula for winning work in this area. The new Horizon Europe programme includes many themes that we will be pursuing including:
- Climate-neutral and Smart Cities;
- Healthy Oceans, Seas, Coastal and Inland Waters;
- Adaptation to Climate Change including Societal Transformation.
RED is also registered with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the CERN programme.
Big Science Infrastructure
Across the world governments and international organisations fund share to build and support very large scale science facilities to push back the boundaries of scientific knowledge and contribute to innovation. CERN is perhaps the biggest and best known global example of such ‘Big Science’.
In the UK the Sciences and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) is responsible for several Big Science facilities including the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory at Harwell. There, RED has been working with the Director and senior managers at the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source since 2016 to advise on measuring performance, optimising experimental processes, and the operating strategy for the now-aging accelerator (see case study Optimisation of Accelerator Operations). While for STFC as a whole we reviewed the best way to implement Functional Safety standards (BS EN 61508) across the organisation.
RED also has experience of working with Big Science infrastructure at MoD’s Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), wind tunnel test facilities for developing airship navigation models, Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) for developing driver hazard perception testing and Sellafield for support to safety technical document production. We are currently developing a collaborative funding project for CERN targeted at measuring performance and optimising experimental processes and we are looking to support the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project being managed from Jodrell Bank.
RED Routes to Market
Within these market sectors, RED uses a focused series of routes to market that allow us to work with our customers. Some of these require our qualification for Frameworks and others use various customer-led Programmes, however, RED uses the most pragmatic mechanism for contracting available for a given market. A summary of these is given below.
