Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2021-11-19
Buyer: Havforskningsinstituttet
Country: NO
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Contract award without prior publication
CPV classification: 72314000: Data collection and collation services | 90711500
Estimated value: 478058 GBP

Technical requirements: 21/02963 Voluntary ex-ante transparency notice - continuation of plankton surveys and collection of CPR data.
The assignment is for a total product with large scale collection of animal plankton, taxonomic development, and maintenance of databases. It is important that there is continuity in both the collection methodology and data processing.
Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) data for occurrences of plant and animal plankton in the North Atlantic has been available on a monthly basis since 1946 (Richardson et al. 2006).  Marine Bilogical Association (MBA) carries out the practical CPR collection and the subsequent taxonomic development, as well as data processing and deliveries of the completed and quality assured data product. The method for the practical collection via CPR has changed very little over the years, and the data for past years for different areas is therefore very comparable, and therefore very suitable for detecting changes in time and space. CPR-data is a strong, established product, and the basis for a number of scientific publications. The contracting authority is of the opinion that no one other than MBA can offer an equivalently established and quality assured data product that is standardised for both different areas and for different years. The reason for this is that MBA has a lot of historical data from the relevant areas that we would like to develop further. There is also a technical connection between previous and new projects, which means that it will not be possible for others to take over the assignment and deliver usable data. No one other than those who produce and work with the CPR data at MBA can offer equivalent expertise on this product.
MBA (previously SAFOS) is the only supplier of a total product with large scale collection of animal plankton, taxonomic development, and maintenance of databases. It is important that there is continuity in both the collection methodology and the data processing.  Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) data for occurrences of plant and animal plankton in the North Atlantic has been available on a monthly basis since 1946 (Richardson et al. 2006).  MBA carries out the practical CPR collection and the subsequent taxonomic development, as well as data processing and deliveries of the completed and quality assured data product. The method for the practical collection via CPR has changed very little over the years, and the data for past years for different areas is therefore very comparable, and therefore very suitable for detecting changes in time and space. CPR-data is a strong, established product, and the basis for a number of scientific publications. We are of the opinion that no one other than MBA can offer an equivalently established and quality assured data product that is standardised for both different areas and different years. The reason for this is that MBA has a lot of historical data from the relevant areas that we would like to develop further. There is also a technical connection between previous and new projects, which means that it will not be possible for others to take over the assignment and deliver usable data. No one other than those who produce and work with the CPR data at MBA can offer equivalent expertise in this product. Our legal basis for making a direct procurement of the collection of samples and database access from MBA is the public procurement regulations, section 13-4 first paragraph, letter b, point 2.


Winner: The Marine Biological Association
Award value: 478058