Section II: Object of the contract
II.1)Description
II.1.1)Title attributed to the contract by the contracting authority:
Financing training in Europe.
II.1.2)Type of contract and location of works, place of delivery or of performance:
Services.
Service category: No 8.
Main place of performance: at the contractor's premises.
NUTS code: GR122.
II.1.3)The notice involves:
A public contract.
II.1.5)Short description of the contract or purchase(s):
The purpose of this contract is to carry out a study to provide a comprehensive overview of financial instruments used by EU countries to share the costs of training. The study will take stock of Cedefop's previous research in the field, up-date this information, complement it with data from other sources, and bring together available evidence on effectiveness and efficiency of different financing instruments.
II.1.6)Common procurement vocabulary (CPV):
73000000, 73200000, 73300000.
II.1.8)Division into lots:
No.
II.1.9)Variants will be accepted:
No.
II.2)Quantity or scope of the contract
II.2.1)Total quantity or scope:
Estimated value excluding VAT: 200 000 EUR.
II.3)Duration of the contract or time limit for completion:
Duration in months: 14 (from the award of the contract).
Section III: Legal, economic, financial and technical information
III.1)Conditions relating to the contract
III.1.1)Deposits and guarantees required:
Not applicable.
III.1.2)Main financing conditions and payment arrangements and/or reference to the relevant provisions regulating them:
Payments will be made within 30 days of submission of invoices provided that deliverables are received and considered acceptable and at the conditions set out in the draft contract.
III.1.3)Legal form to be taken by the group of economic operators to whom the contract is to be awarded:
Participation in tendering procedures is open on equal terms to all natural and legal persons or groupings of such persons (consortia) falling within the scope of the Treaties.
Tenderers may choose between submitting a joint offer as a consortium/grouping or by introducing a bid as a single tenderer, in both cases with the possibility of having 1 or several subcontractors. Whichever type of bid is chosen, the tender must stipulate the legal status and role of each legal entity in the tender proposed.
Groupings (consortia), irrespective of their legal form, may submit a tender on condition that it complies with the rules of competition. An economic operator may, where appropriate and for a particular contract, rely on the capacities of other entities, regardless of the legal nature of the links which it has with them. He must in that case prove to the contracting authority that he will have at his disposal the resources necessary for performance of the contract, for example by producing an undertaking on the part of those entities to place those resources at his disposal.
III.1.4)Other particular conditions to which the performance of the contract is subject:
Yes.
Description of particular conditions:
Subcontracting is allowed and is defined as the situation where a contract has been or is to be established between Cedefop and a contractor and where the contractor, in order to carry out that contract, enters into legal commitments with other entities for performing part of the service. If awarded, the contract will be signed by the selected tenderer (the contractor), who will be vis-à-vis Cedefop the only contracting party responsible for the performance of this contract. Cedefop has no direct legal commitment with the subcontractor(s).
For more information please refer to the tender documents.
III.2)Conditions for participation
III.2.1)Personal situation of economic operators, including requirements relating to enrolment on professional or trade registers:
Information and formalities necessary for evaluating if requirements are met:
Tenderers must meet the exclusion and selection criteria.
Participation in this tender is only open to tenderers who are in a position to subscribe in full to the declaration on exclusion criteria and absence of conflict of interest. Each and all requirements for economic, financial and technical capacity should be fulfilled by the tenderer — alone (in the case of single tenderers) or by the consortium (grouping) as a whole (in case the tenderer is a consortium).
III.2.2)Economic and financial capacity:
Information and formalities necessary for evaluating if requirements are met:
The tenderer must be in a stable financial position and have the economic and financial capacity to perform the contract.
Minimum level(s) of standards possibly required:
Requirements:
— the average annual turnover of the tenderer (of a single company, or of a consortium as a whole, if any) for the last 3 financial years concerning the type of services covered in this call for tenders should be at least 200 000 EUR.
Please refer to the tender documents for more information and for the necessary documents that should be presented as evidence of compliance with the above criterion/requirement.
III.2.3)Technical capacity:
Information and formalities necessary for evaluating if requirements are met:
The tenderer is required to have sufficient technical and professional capacity to perform the contract.
Minimum level(s) of standards possibly required:
Requirements:
— the tenderer should have adequate resources and suitable structure to perform the services described in the terms of reference,
— the tenderer's team of experts, who will be proposed to implement the contract, must have the relevant qualifications, knowledge and professional experience for the successful implementation of the tasks described in the terms of reference.
Requirements for the team leader:
— a minimum of 5 years of professional experience in research project management,
— a minimum of 5 years of experience in comparative analysis at international level,
— a minimum of 3 years of experience in the following fields of research: vocational education and training, financing education and training,
— linguistic ability to communicate and draft to a high standard in English.
Requirements for each of the research team members:
— a minimum of 3 years of experience in comparative analysis at international level,
— a minimum of 2 years of experience in the following fields of research: vocational education and training, financing education and training,
— linguistic ability to communicate and draft to a high standard in English,
— the tenderer should have performed at least 3 contracts in the past 3 years similar in scope, size and nature of the services with those required in the terms of reference.
Please refer to the tender documents for more information and for the necessary documents that should be presented as evidence of compliance with the above criteria/requirements.
III.2.4)Reserved contracts:
No.
III.3)Conditions specific to services contracts
III.3.1)Execution of the service is reserved to a particular profession:
No.
III.3.2)Legal entities should indicate the names and professional qualifications of the staff responsible for the execution of the service:
Yes.
Section IV: Procedure
IV.1)Type of procedure
IV.1.1)Type of procedure:
Open.
IV.2)Award criteria
IV.2.1)Award criteria:
The most economically advantageous tender in terms of the criteria stated in the specifications, in the invitation to tender or to negotiate or in the descriptive document.
IV.2.2)An electronic auction will be used:
No.
IV.3)Administrative information
IV.3.1)File reference number attributed by the contracting authority:
'AO/RPA/PLI-PSZO/Financing training/017/10'.
IV.3.2)Previous publication(s) concerning the same contract:
No.
IV.3.3)Conditions for obtaining specifications and additional documents or descriptive document:
Time limit for receipt of requests for documents or for accessing documents:
6.10.2010.
Payable documents: no.
IV.3.4)Time limit for receipt of tenders or requests to participate:
18.10.2010.
IV.3.6)Language(s) in which tenders or requests to participate may be drawn up:
Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish.
IV.3.7)Minimum time-frame during which the tenderer must maintain the tender:
Until: 18.4.2011.
IV.3.8)Conditions for opening tenders:
Date: 2.11.2010 (11:00).
Place: Cedefop's premises.
Persons authorised to be present at the opening of tenders: yes.
Each tenderer may be represented at the opening of tenders by 1 person. The name of the person attending the opening must be notified in writing by fax (+30 2310490028) or by e-mail (c4t-services@cedefop.europa.eu) at least 2 working days prior to the opening session.
Section VI: Complementary information
VI.1)This is a recurrent procurement:
No.
VI.2)Contract related to a project and/or programme financed by EU funds:
No.
VI.3)Additional information:
VI.4)Procedures for appeal
VI.4.1)Body responsible for appeal procedures:
General Court of the European Union, boulevard Konrad Adenauer, 2925 Luxembourg, LUXEMBOURG. Tel. +352 4303-1. Fax +352 4303-2100.
VI.5)Date of dispatch of this notice:
16.8.2010.