The future procurement will take the form of a pre-commercial procurement (PCP) under which R&D service contracts will be awarded to a number of operators in parallel in a phased approach. This will make it possible to compare competing alternative solutions.
Each selected operator will be awarded a framework agreement that covers 3 R&D phases.
The 3 phases are:
1) Solution design,
2) Prototye,
3) Pilot.
After each phase, intermediate evaluations will be carried out to progressively select the best of the competing solutions. The operators with the best solutions will be offered a specific contract for the next phase.
In the Pilot Phase, solutions will be tested and evaluated to ensure that TRL8 been reached. Original development and validation and testing of a limited set of first products or services will take place. It is envisaged that the location of testing should take place at a minimum in the countries of the buyer’s group – France, Finland and Estonia. Requirement validation activities across a wider set of public authorities responsible for public safety communications is already in progress. It is possible that testing locations may also be in a stakeholder country.
The PCP procedure is estimated to commence in October 2021 and end in May 2024.
The selected operators will retain ownership of the intellectual property rights (IPRs) that they generate during the PCP and will be able to use them to exploit the full market potential of the developed solutions i.e. beyond the procurement.
The BroadGNSS buyer’s group wish to carry open market consultation (OMC) to provide further information on its objectives, process, timescales and to seek feedback about the maturity of technology and capability of operators to innovate in this field. All interested operators are therefore invited to take part regardless of their geographic location, the size or governance structure of their organisation. It will not bind operators going forward.
The open market consultation will be organised as an assortment of the following activities:
—an online questionnaire: open from 27 May 2021 to end June 2021. The questionnaire will be made available on the project website;
—online webinar: 27 May 2021. Details and registration will be available on the project website 3 weeks beforehand;
— and finally, a partnering event: 14 October 2021 in Paris if it will be possible to travel (i.e. face-to-face event). If not, the event will be conducted online. Details about the location and registration will be on the project website 3 weeks beforehand.
All additional information relating to the OMC activities, such as dates, venues, registration, background information and key outputs will be published in English on the project website — http://www.broadgnss -info.eu/.
The BroadGNSSS consortium will manage the OMC process in an open and transparent manner.
The working language of the PCP is English. The tender documents will be published in French and English. All offers in the procurement will be provided in French and in English, except for the technical aspects of the offers, which may be submitted in English only.
For equal treatment to all interested economic operators, face-to-face meetings will only be used to provide basic information on the challenge and process as well as to listen to operators in an open and transparent way. No bilateral talks between the BroadGNSS consortium and operators involving the disclosure of confidential information pertaining to the future PCP is allowed.