The European Commission is publishing this invitation to tender for services to conclude a contract with a service provider (or consortium) to manage the market place of the European innovation partnership on smart cities and communities (EIP-SCC).
The selected service provider will help the European Commission and the EIP-SCC constituency (public authorities at EU, national and local level as well as the industry and the research and financing community) to push forward the implementation agenda of the EIP-SCC following the established general roadmap as well as the roadmaps of the respective initiatives thereunder.
The expected task portfolio includes, but is not limited to:
— programme management office support to the EIP-SCC, its action clusters and their initiatives,
— direct and personal support to the (voluntary) lead persons of the respective action clusters and initiatives (e.g. provision of tailored technical documentation, provision of high-quality minutes for meetings, help with logistics for meetings, etc.),
— close cooperation with the Covenant of Mayors Office, the smart cities information system (SCIS), the Civitas initiative, the Green Digital Charter and other relevant EU initiatives, including, but not limited to:
• organisation of collaborative workshops or events related to the EIP-SCC roadmaps and topics,
• co-authoring of publications relevant for the EIP-SCC community and the respective EU initiative's constituency,
— enabling the EIP-SCC market place to perform its tasks efficiently and effectively by organising meetings and gathering and summarising the input of its members into high-quality documents, focused on the crucial actions and deliverables that support the implementation of the EIP-SCC roadmap and — in the broader sense — its strategic implementation plan,
— maintaining a close relationship between the actors of the EIP-SCC market place, the various stakeholders (including public authorities) and the European Commission by means of regular meetings and reporting,
— support the outreach to new market players, in particular from the finance sector,
— support building a pipeline of smart city projects, including facilitation of interlinks with European structural and investment funds as well as the European Fund for Strategic Investments,
— provide timely and well-structured feedback to the European Commission to further develop and implement the EIP-SCC roadmap and for the implementation plan of the SET-Plan key action 3 in the field of smart cities and communities,
— efficiently and effectively promoting the activities of the EIP-SCC market place and disseminating their outcome, including, inter alia, a professionally edited and high added value newsletter that is published in a timely manner and for which the contractor guarantees the highest quality and minimum needed interaction with the commission staff,
— overhauling and constantly improving the website of the EIP-SCC market place (and its sub-groupings) by integrating state-of-the-art (and beyond) collaboration and networking tools to allow for seamless dialogues of the demand and supply side of the smart city market the EIP-SCC is aiming to create,
— giving concrete advice for future activities of the EIP-SCC,
— organisation of high-level workshops, meetings and conferences with high participation numbers, aiming at supporting and multiplying the listed objectives above,
— provision of tailor-made dissemination tools and strategies to reach out to all potential stakeholders including the broader public.
To make sure that the EIP-SCC and its core activities (such as the EIP-SCC initiatives) are supported in the best possible way; allocation of sufficient high-quality and experienced human resources is indispensable.
The services to be delivered shall cover the European Union, its Member States, its local communities as well as FP7 and Horizon 2020 associated countries.