Co-funded Projects – Guidelines for Preparation of Proposals

This short document has been prepared for all those that are not familiar with the preparation and submission of proposals to ESA. In particular it has been tailored for those that intend to submit proposals for co-funded (50%) activities.

Disclaimer
The information contained hereinafter is intended to provide guidance for proposal preparation and therefore has not any legal or contractual value. The complete set of the applicable legal and contractual documentation is available on EMITS.

Content of document

1. Contractual and administrative issues
2. Structure of the Proposal
3. Do s and Don t s

1. Contractual and administrative issues

Document Structure of ESA’s Invitation to Tender (ITT)

Documents

The list below contains the documents that shall be read carefully for the preparation of the proposal:

• Statement of work / Request for Quotation
• General Conditions of Tender for ESA contracts
• Special Conditions of Tender of ITT
• General Clauses and Conditions for ESA contracts
• Special Contract Conditions (Draft) of ITT
• Others (see Draft Contract)
  All documents are available under ESA s electronic tender system EMITS.

Intellectual Property Rights aspects

• IPR belongs to the Contractor
• ESA licence limited to the use of IPR required to fulfil the objectives of the Contract 
• Protection of background know how, if applicable
• No Royalties

General points to be noted

• Registration with ESA (EMITS) is necessary for obtaining a Bidder Code without this code no contract can be placed
• Expenses incurred in the preparation of the proposal will not be reimbursed

2. Do’s and Don’ts

Do: 

• Provide a sound justification for the choice of technology
• Provide a clear list of deliverables
• Clarify roles and responsibilities of partners (e.g. subcontractors) in the industrial team (If a subcontractor is present he should be responsible for at least one WP)
• Provide a clear list of inputs, tasks and outputs for each Work Package (WP)
• Include an explanation of the used acronyms and abbreviations where necessary

Do not:

• Spend too much on presenting and discussing the background scenario
• Leave space to interpretation as it can generate wrong expectations within the contractual team and ESA
• Correlate quality of proposal with number of pages (be concise!!!)

3. Structure of the proposal

Summary of requirements extracted from the applicable ITT documents:
Tender Conditions, Statement of Work, etc.

• Cover Letter
• Technical proposal
• Financial, Management and Administrative Proposal

Cover letter

The required content of the Cover letter is described in detail in the general and special Tender Conditions.

The cover letter shall contain a compliance statement concerning the following points of ESA s General Conditions of Tender:

• General information on tenderer s status (A4)
• Validity period of tender (B3): 4 months from closing date
• Compliance statement with respect to technical and management requirements (B10c)
• Compliance statement with respect to contract conditions (B10d)

Furthermore, the following information shall be included:

• Names of persons responsible for the technical and contractual management of the contract
• Name, address, telefax and telephone number of the bidder s contact person
• Signature by a person authorised

Technical Proposal:

The required content of the Technical Proposal is described in detail in the Special Tender Conditions and the Statement of Work . As in a number of cases the Statement of Work is kept generic to allow for submission of proposals in different fields of technology/applications, the following list represents potential elements of content. 

• Introduction
  – general description of purpose and scope
  – abbreviations and acronyms
  – definition of terms
  – applicable documents
  – reference documents
  – structure of proposal
   
• General Description
  – overview
  – background
  – needs
  – barriers
   
• Task 1: Technical Feasibility Analysis

Requirements / Specification

• Architectural Design
  – overall concept
  – detailed description of single elements
   
• External Interfaces
  – overview
  – application / content providers
  – satellite service providers
  – manufacturers
  – facilities
   
• Software Architecture
   
• Hardware Architecture
   
• Operational Roll-out Plan
  – development plan
  – provider / manufacturer
  – installation
  – operations & customer support
  – marketing
   
• Task 2: Commercial Feasibility Analysis

Strategic Plan / Business Plan:

•  Positioning of company and product in the value chain
  – intended position of company in the market (business objective)
  – intended position of product in the value chain
  – selling points
  – present market position and competition
   
• Business implementation
  – target customers
  – business partners
  – commercial strategy (time to market, marketing, implementation)
   
• Financial assessment
  – addressable market, customer numbers
  – yearly sales projection (system, subsystem, components)
  – return on investment

Financial, Management and Administrative Proposal:

The required content of the Financial, Management and Administrative Proposal is described in detail in the General Conditions of Tender and the Special Conditions of Tender .

• Background experience of the company(ies)
   
• Organisation and management
  – structure of organisation
  – organigram showing tasks, position, authority, name of persons
  – lines of communication and reporting
  – management plan, policies and procedures incl. management control organization 
   
• Description of facilities to be used for the work offered
  – to be used, to be developed/built/purchased
  – means of access to information resources 
   
• Key personnel
  – overview of study team
  – per key person: position in organisation, proportion of working time devoted to the work offered, curriculum vitae (incl. work experience, responsibility) 
   
• List of items typically to be produced and delivered

  Item	When
  Minutes of meetings	All meetings (within 10 days)
  Progress reports	Monthly
  Web page	First progress meeting, update with progress reports
  Work package reports	End of tasks
  Review package	Reviews
  Draft executive summary (3)	Final review
  Draft final report (3)	Final review
  Final executive summary (70)	End of activity
  Final report (70)	End of activity
  Software / Hardware	End of activity
  Installation and Operations Manual	End of activity

   

• Work breakdown structure including work package descriptions (WBS: hierarchy of project, title/number of work package, responsible company; WPD: inputs, tasks, outputs)
   
• Planning and scheduling
  – narrative description
  – logic bar chart
  – identification of payment milestones (related to project achievements) (timeline, milestone deliverable, date, payment) 
   
• Cost price data for the prime contractor and each sub-contractor
  – PSS-A1 (company cost data sheet)
  – PSS-A2 (company price breakdown form)
  – PSS-A8 (manpower and price summary at work package level)
  PSS forms available under EMITS
   
• including exchange rate(s) and other factors on which calculations are based (especially for non Euro countries) 
   
• Type of price (defined in the draft contract) (normally firm fixed price up to 250 kEuro, ceiling price above 250 kEuro) 
   
• Milestone payments plan (milestone description, schedule date, amount in Euro, company; typically 4 milestones: advance upon signature, 2 progress milestones, final review) 
   
• Travel and subsistence information (meeting, place, time (t0 + ), participants (company A, B, )
   
• Acceptance of contract conditions ( General Clauses and Conditions for ESA contracts , Special Contract Conditions ) with any exceptions to be stated clearly