Calls

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) would like to receive offers for Phase 1 of its Foresight study on the Circular economy and its effect on OSH.

The Circular Economy (CE) refers to the circular flow and efficient (re)use of resources, materials and products. The Circular Economy may be seen as an opportunity for the creation of good quality jobs, however it will also lead to new jobs in hazardous sectors related to maintenance and repair, disassembly and recycling, that could also have negative impact on working conditions.

The focus of this foresight will be the on the effects of the Circular economy on OSH. As a consequence of changed processes and use of different (reused) materials, jobs will be changed and reshaped. These changes will potentially improve OSH, for example by eliminating substances that are hazardous to health and the environment from material cycles. Potential risks may arise, related to e.g. hazardous waste, redesign of tasks or increased transportation.

Type of procedure

Low value negotiated procedure launched and managed by EU-OSHA. The Agency will sign the service contract directly with the successful tenderer following this low-value procurement process.

The maximum available total value for the contract will be EUR 60,000 (excluding VAT).

Main objectives / services provided for under the contract:

The objective of this tender is the delivery of macro-scenarios for the future of the Circular Economy in the EU and its effects on OSH based on a review of existing (future-oriented) knowledge on this topic. It comprises the first phase of EU OSHA’s third foresight cycle.

This third foresight will build as much as possible on the work done in EU OSHA’s former foresight studies, as well on available (national/regional) knowledge on the topic of the Circular Economy and OSH. In this respect the recent INRS foresight on “A Circular economy in 2040“[1] is of particular relevance.

 The Agency`s intention is to contract a service provider to deliver the following tasks/services:

1. Reviewing and adapting of relevant research (published scientific and grey literature) on ‘the future aspects of the Circular Economy and its consequences for OSH’ at a European level.
   The contractors will be asked to collect, select and review existing research and (documented) initiatives in the member states on the Circular economy and OSH via desk research, complemented where appropriate with expert consultation. The French study on CE and OSH by INRS is regarded as a core resource that should be built on by the contractor. In addition, the ‘key drivers of change’ (and megatrends) and in particular the scenarios that were developed as part of the two earlier EU-OSHA’s foresight studies should be reviewed.
2. Consolidation of the scenarios and the ‘key drivers of change’.
   Drawing on the material from task 1, the contractor should produce a consolidated report adapted to the EU-level, which includes the consolidated list of key trends and drivers and macro-scenarios and their consequences of OSH.

The foreseen outputs include:

• An Inception report, including a detailed work and methodology;
• An Interim report, including introduction, description of methodology and draft overview of findings;
• A Final report containing an introduction, background information, description of the methodology, body of the review including the adapted list of key drivers and narratives of the macro scenarios, and discussion and conclusions (40 – 50 pages);
• Up to five two-page ‘policy briefs’;
• Visualisations to support the scenarios;
• A PowerPoint presentation representing the results of the report;
• An OSHwiki article summarising the results and taking account of the information on the topic already available in EU-OSHA´s OSHwiki.

The contractor will be asked to attend a one day meeting in Bilbao in order to present the results to EU-OSHA’s network of national focal points.

The provided macro-scenarios produced in this first phase will be the input for the next phase (phase 2) of this foresight. In phase 2 dissemination workshops will be developed, dedicated to specific contexts for future scenario development to address the needs of specific stakeholder groups.

The results of phase 1 and 2 of the foresight have the objective to support policy makers at European and national level in their development of strategies, regulation, enforcement, guidance and support measures. It will also indicate knowledge gaps to help identify research priorities.

 Tenderers must comply with the following criteria:

• The tenderer must prove its educational and professional qualifications in the field of OSH: at least two members of the team should have relevant
  higher education degree and minimum 5 years' professional experience in the field of social research on health and safety.
• The tenderer must prove experience of working in the field of OSH: experience of cross- cultural research activities in the area of OSH with at least two  projects carried out in the last 10 years;
• Tenderers must be able to demonstrate previous study experience in Circular Economy related fields and work similar to the subject of the contract (as for example projects dealing with the impact of future job changes on OSH) with at least two projects delivered in the last 10 years.
• The tenderer must prove experience of working in English along with the capacity to provide final reports (and the content of the tools as ready to be published material) with the highest quality standards in terms of English (preferably C2 level, and at least C1 level of the CEF/CEFR).

Participation in this negotiated procedure for a low value contract will be open to natural and legal persons falling within the scope of the EU Treaties (this includes all economic operators registered in the European Union and all European Union citizens) and to all natural and legal persons in a third country which has a special agreement with the Union in the field of public procurement on the conditions laid down in that agreement.

If you would like to participate in this negotiated procedure, please register your interest via email to Procurement-PRU [at] osha [dot] europa [dot] eu  by no later than 09/07/2020 16:00 CET. Please include your contact details (name, organisation, address, country and e-mail) and make reference to the call EUOSHA/2020/NE/D/SE/0114.

The estimated date to invite to tender is 10/07/2020.

Please note that registration of interest to participate in the above-mentioned procedure does not give rise to any legitimate expectations to be invited.