Strategic Industrial Participation & Offsets
A practitioner's masterclass for people new to Offset and Industrial Participation. It sets academic theory aside and concentrates on the commercial realities: winning bids, protecting margins and delivering what was promised.
Online over nine weeks, or in-house over three days for your team
- 8core modules, plus a UK elective
- 6public-record case studies
- 13national Offset regimes compared
- 72knowledge-check questions
- 85terms in the course glossary
- 1live negotiation to finish
Who the course is for
People taking on Offset or Industrial Participation responsibilities for the first time: bid and capture managers, newly appointed Offset managers, commercial, contracts and procurement staff, programme managers, finance staff who cost and report Offset, and executives who approve bids.
It suits defence and aerospace companies bidding into markets with Offset requirements, their suppliers, and UK companies and government staff who work with foreign suppliers. No prior knowledge of Offset is needed.
How much do you already know?
Six questions that experienced Offset managers should get right. It takes about two minutes, and nothing you choose is recorded.
A sales agent you hired bribes an official to speed up approval of your Offset project. Nobody at your company knew. Under the UK Bribery Act, your company:
Answer: C. Section 7 makes a company liable when someone performing services for it pays a bribe to win or keep business for it, anywhere in the world. Its only defence is adequate procedures to prevent bribery.
A local supplier invoices you £10m for new work. 40% of its value is imported material, and £2m of the order is business you already place with that supplier every year. Under a typical value-added rule, how much is eligible for credit before any multiplier?
Answer: D. Many regimes credit only new business, and only the share of value added locally: (£10m − £2m) × 60% = £4.8m.
Under Poland’s Offset Act, what penalty applies to an obligation left unperformed?
Answer: A. Poland’s penalty equals the unperformed obligation, and the supplier’s security must be at least the Offset value. Many other regimes charge between 5% and 15%.
Since 2026, which activity earns the highest multiplier under Canada’s Industrial and Technological Benefits policy?
Answer: B. Canada raised Indigenous workforce development to ten times its value in 2026, its largest multiplier. Investment in Canadian-owned intellectual property earns five times, and direct work with small firms twice.
Switzerland set the Offset on its F-35A purchase at 60% of the contract value. Which rule also decides where the work goes?
Answer: D. Swiss Offsets follow a regional key: 65% to German-speaking, 30% to French-speaking and 5% to Italian-speaking Switzerland.
Your Offset project would share US-origin technical data for a defence item with a foreign partner. Which approval do you normally need before sharing it?
Answer: A. Under the US International Traffic in Arms Regulations, defence services and technical data need State Department approval, usually through a technical assistance agreement, before they are shared.
You clearly know the field. The in-house course can bring the rest of your team up to the same standard.
A solid base, with a gap or two. The course fills them, and adds the negotiating and delivery judgement that comes from practice.
Many people new to Offset score here. The course was written for exactly that starting point.
What participants will be able to do
- Explain the deal
What Offset, Industrial Participation and localisation are, why governments use them and how they differ by country.
- Read a policy
Pick out the clauses in a national Offset policy that drive cost, risk and strategy.
- Build a strategy
Shape an Offset strategy for a bid, and judge how it changes the chance of winning.
- Place work locally
Design direct Offset and localisation projects that protect quality and schedule.
- Transfer technology safely
Design technology, research, investment and training projects that earn credit, protect core intellectual property and stay within export controls.
- Do the numbers
Calculate credit, multipliers, banked credit, penalty exposure and the true cost of an Offset programme.
- Negotiate
Prepare for and conduct a negotiation with an Offset authority.
- Deliver cleanly
Run a programme to close-out: governance, evidence, audits, reporting and recovery, within anti-bribery law.
Course structure
Eight core modules follow the life of an Offset obligation, from the first sight of a requirement to the completion letter. Every exercise builds the same fictional bid, so the closing negotiation draws on all of it.
- Module 1Before you start
- Module 2Read the market
- Module 3Plan and propose
- Modules 4 and 5Design the projects
- Module 6Value and cost
- Module 7Agree the terms
- Module 8Deliver, prove and close
Open a module to see what it covers and how it is taught.
Module 1Foundations
What is Offset, and why do governments want it?
What it covers
- What Offset is, and the names countries use for it
- Direct Offset, indirect Offset and countertrade
- Why governments demand Offset, and the case against it
- The players, and what each of them wants
How it is taught
- Case study
- The F-16 ‘deal of the century’, 1975
- Exercise
- Offset or not? Classifying ten proposed activities
Module 2The rules of the game
What do the rules allow, demand and forbid?
What it covers
- Trade law and the security exception: the myth of the open market
- Anatomy of an Offset regime: a twelve-point checklist
- Three families of regime, compared country by country
- The hard limits: bribery, export control, sanctions and competition law
How it is taught
- Case study
- Europe’s U-turn on Offsets
- Exercise
- Decode a national Offset policy
Module 3Strategy and the bid
How do we win with an Offset package we can afford?
What it covers
- Starting early: Offset in the capture plan
- Reading your leverage
- Building the strategy and the proposal
- Getting the bid approved: cost, risk and governance
How it is taught
- Case study
- Switzerland’s F-35 Offset and its regional key
- Exercise
- Strategy on a page
Module 4Direct Offsets and localisation
How do we place work locally without hurting quality or schedule?
What it covers
- From burden to asset: localisation that wins bids
- The forms of direct Offset, from build-to-print to licensed production
- Supply chain reality checks: qualifying a new local supplier
- Structuring the deal: workshare, quality and risk
How it is taught
- Case study
- Poland’s K2 tank localisation
- Exercise
- A supplier development plan
Module 5Technology transfer and indirect Offsets
How do we earn credit beyond the platform without giving away the crown jewels?
What it covers
- What governments ask for, and what is commercially viable
- Protecting intellectual property inside export controls
- Valuing technology transfer: the cost, market and income approaches
- Investment, joint ventures, research, training and export support
How it is taught
- Case study
- Korea, from F-16 kits to aircraft exports
- Exercise
- The technology package: transfer, license or decline
Module 6The mathematics of Offsets
What is each project worth, what will it cost, and what if we fall short?
What it covers
- How credit is valued
- Multipliers, caps and discount factors
- Banking, pre-crediting and transfers
- Penalty exposure and the true cost of Offset
How it is taught
- Worked example
- A supplier’s credit and cost model
- Exercise
- Rebalance the plan, using the course spreadsheet
Module 7Negotiation across cultures
How do we agree terms we can live with?
What it covers
- The practitioner’s edge: why standard tactics fail
- The Offset agreement, clause by clause
- Regional approaches: the Gulf, Asia, Europe and North America
- Redirecting the impossible ask
How it is taught
- Case study
- The radar that could not move, drawn from practice
- Exercise
- The negotiation plan
Module 8Delivery, audit and recovery
How do we deliver, prove it and recover when things slip?
What it covers
- Running an Offset programme
- The audit trail: causality, additionality and evidence
- When delivery falls short
- Penalties, disputes and close-out
- Integrity in delivery
How it is taught
- Case study
- South Africa’s arms deal Offsets
- Exercise
- Year 4: recovering a programme under pressure
Module 9 · ElectiveThe UK lens
What could the UK ask for, and how should companies prepare?
What it covers
- The UK’s past experience of Industrial Participation
- What the UK has said since 2025
- How a UK regime could work: a worked model
- How foreign suppliers and UK companies should prepare
How it is taught
- Case study
- Two designs compared
- Format
- One 90-minute session for UK-focused groups
The capstone: Project Halcyon
A live negotiation that draws on every module.
Every exercise in the course builds towards one fictional procurement: a £500m helicopter programme with a demanding Offset authority. In the capstone, teams play the foreign supplier's capture and Offset team and negotiate the Industrial Participation agreement against the clock.
Developments during the negotiation test judgement as well as technique. Afterwards, each participant turns the result into a strategy paper for the board.
- TeamsFour or five people, each in a defined role
- Time2.5 hours online, or up to a full day in-house
- Across the tableThe Offset authority, played by the course leader
- Scored onThe agreement reached, what the plan costs and covers, and how the team conducts itself
Two ways to take the course
Online cohort
Work through each module at your own pace during the week: a recorded lecture of 60 to 90 minutes in short segments, about an hour of reading from official government guidelines, and an online knowledge check. Each week ends with a 60-minute live session.
- Weeks 1 to 8One module a week
- Week 9The capstone negotiation
- Week 11Strategy paper due
In-house intensive
Delivered to your team, two or three modules a day, each with a short exercise. The optional fourth day is the full capstone negotiation; without it, a shorter negotiation closes the third day.
- Day 1Modules 1 to 3
- Day 2Modules 4 to 6
- Day 3Modules 7 and 8, and capstone preparation
- Day 4The capstone negotiation (optional)
Assessment, certificate and materials
Three steps to the certificate
- A knowledge check after each module: eight questions, with a pass mark of six.
- A full role in the capstone negotiation.
- A strategy paper of up to 2,500 words, marked against set criteria: pass at 60%, distinction at 75%.
In-house groups can take a certificate of attendance instead, without the paper.
What participants receive
- A participant workbook with every exercise and the full Project Halcyon scenario
- The course spreadsheet: a credit, milestone and cost model
- A glossary of 85 terms
- A reading pack of official guidelines and expert summaries for 15 countries
- A certificate on completion
Course leader
The course is led by Stephen Lewis, who founded Capital in 2013. He has more than 25 years' experience in Offset, Industrial Participation and cross-border trade finance, on programmes in nearly 30 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and the Americas.
The teaching draws on that front-line experience rather than academic theory. Every module includes examples from his own programmes, from technology transfer in Taiwan to steel exports credited under Offset contracts in South Korea. About Capital
Register your interest
Email Capital with your name, job title and organisation, and say which format interests you: the online cohort, or an in-house course for your team.
Dates and fees for the first online cohort will be sent to everyone who registers interest. For an in-house course, let us know your preferred dates and roughly how many people will take part.
Your details are used only to respond to your enquiry.
Email Capital
Subject line, so your enquiry is picked up straight away:
Offset course: register interestPrefer to talk first? +44 (0)7776 226656, UK office hours.
Working on a UK commitment?
Meet others doing the same at the UK National Offset Council (UK-NOC), an informal quarterly gathering in London. The first takes place in Q4 2026.