Learning through Experimentation for Adaptive Programming (LEAP) - Producing experimental designs for ERDF/CF/JTF investment in the field of access to...

European Commission DG REGIO is procuring specialist research, evaluation, policy design and facilitation services to develop NRPP-ready experimental designs for three Member States and a transferable LEAP Kit to embed experimentation in 2028–2034 cohesion programming. The contract is a services procurement (CPV 79400000/79000000) with an estimated maximum value of €340,000 and a maximum duration of nine months from contract entry into force. Key outputs include three country diagnostics, three experimental designs, workshops, a joint synthesis event and a publishable LEAP Kit; the contractor will not implement the experiments. Tenders must be submitted electronically via the European Commission Funding & Tenders Portal eSubmission tool by 7 December 2026, 16:00 Brussels time, and will be awarded on a best price-quality ratio (quality 70%, price 30%).

What it funds

Scope and main outputs

Service contract to design NRPP-ready experimental (primarily RCT) designs and a practical toolkit (LEAP Kit) for embedding experimentation in 2028–2034 National and Regional Partnership Plans, focused on improving access to quality public services (e.g. health, education, social services, mobility, digital access).

The contractor provides technical facilitation and co-design only; implementation of experiments is out of scope.

Who can apply

Eligible bidders

Any natural or legal person or consortium established in the territory of the EU or in countries covered by the Government Procurement Agreement, including international organisations, provided they meet exclusion and selection criteria in the tender specifications.

Contract & practical details

Tender documentation, invitation to tender and detailed specifications are published in English on the Funding & Tenders Portal; tenders must follow the submission rules in the invitation and tender specifications.

Footnotes

1. 1Procurement documents, invitation and tender specifications are available on the Funding & Tenders Portal LEAP tender details.

Opportunity summary

Key dates and submission

What the contracting authority wants to buy

Detailed task list (high level)

Deliverables, milestones and payment schedule

Deliverables and timing are specified in the tender specifications and draft contract. All deliverables in English; NRPP-ready experimental designs must also be provided in the national language of each participating Member State. The contract specifies bi-weekly progress meetings and a kick-off meeting within 10 calendar days of entry into force.

Eligibility and who should apply

Selection and evaluation criteria (summary)

Administrative & contractual notes

Practical application requirements

Eligibility, consortium and geographic rules (structured answers)

Application templates and structure (what to submit)

Required submission components (summary). The full list and templates are in Annex 1 of the Tender Specifications and on the Funding & Tenders Portal: technical tender (methodology, team, workplan, timeline, tasks, quality control), financial tender (total price and breakdown), Declaration on Honour (Annex 2), Agreement/Power of Attorney for joint tenders (Annex 3), list of identified subcontractors (Annex 4), commitment letters from identified subcontractors and entities relied upon (Annex 5.1 / 5.2), evidence for selection criteria (project lists, client references, financial statements if requested), and any other documents indicated in Annex 1.

Assessment of technical scope and recommended tender approach

The contracting authority requires a contractor that can combine robust experimental (RCT/quasi-experimental) design capability with practical programme planning experience and capacity-building skills. Tenderers should demonstrate the ability to co-produce designs with managing authorities and evaluators, translate experiment requirements into operational NRPP clauses, design realistic data strategies (administrative data linkage where possible), and create a practical, publishable LEAP Kit. Demonstrable ethics experience and a clear approach to equity safeguards are mandatory. The tender should show how the team will work in parallel across three country workstreams and how lessons and methodological choices will be fed into the LEAP Kit in real time.

Compliance, audits and monitoring

Contract performance will be subject to Commission checks and audits. The contractor must retain records for five years after payment of the balance. The Commission may request supporting documents for exclusion/selection checks and the contractor must cooperate with audits (including EDES checks, OLAF, Court of Auditors and EPPO where applicable). Security and data protection audits may be performed; compliance with Commission security rules and Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 is required.

What this opportunity is about — final summary

This is a DG REGIO procurement to build capacity and produce practical experimental designs and a toolkit (LEAP Kit) so that experimentation (preferably RCTs) can be embedded in National and Regional Partnership Plans for the 2028–2034 programming period. The contractor will work with three selected EU Member States to deliver diagnostics, co‑production workshops, NRPP-ready experimental designs, and a Commission-owned, transferrable LEAP Kit. The assignment is design- and capacity-focused; it does not include running experiments. The estimated contract value is €340,000, duration up to 9 months, awarded on a best price-quality ratio. Applicants should be teams or consortia with demonstrated experience in RCTs and quasi-experimental designs, capacity building for public administrations, multi-country analysis, and practical programme design. Submission is by eSubmission on the Funding & Tenders Portal; consult all procurement documents and annexes before preparing the tender.

Footnotes

1. 1Procurement documents and all annexes (Invitation to tender, Tender specifications, Draft contract, Declaration on honour, Appendix 2 Security requirements) are published on the Funding & Tenders Portal: ec.europa.eu

Funding opportunity assessment

This opportunity is a European Commission public procurement tender, not a grant scheme. The contracting authority is the European Commission, Directorate General for Regional and Urban Policy. The Commission intends to purchase specialist research, evaluation, policy design and facilitation services to prepare experimental approaches for investments in access to quality public services under the ERDF, Cohesion Fund and Just Transition Fund framework.

The assignment is designed to help embed experimentation and adaptive learning in National and Regional Partnership Plans for the 2028 to 2034 programming period. It will combine evaluation expertise with cohesion policy programming expertise and produce practical experimental designs that managing authorities can use when implementing future investments.

The official Funding and Tenders Portal record and procurement documents are the controlling sources for the opportunity and should be checked for amendments before submission 1.

Opportunity profile

Strategic purpose and policy context

The assignment addresses the difficulty of ensuring that citizens, especially those in rural, remote, lagging or demographically pressured areas, can access public services of adequate quality. The policy problem is not limited to missing infrastructure. Service accessibility and quality also depend on delivery models, governance, digital access, transport, organisation and adaptation to local conditions.

Potential investment areas include employment services, education and training infrastructure, early childhood education and care, schools, universities, lifelong learning, social housing, integrated services for marginalised communities, health infrastructure, deinstitutionalisation, digital public services, e government, water supply, sustainable urban mobility and regional or local transport connectivity.

The assignment promotes randomised controlled trials as the preferred approach for identifying causal effects. Prospective quasi experimental designs may be accepted where full randomisation is not feasible for ethical, political or practical reasons. Examples include phased rollouts and engineered eligibility thresholds.

The experiments are intended to compare different ways of delivering services, not to determine whether a public service should be provided at all. Possible comparisons include digital access versus in person access, fixed service hubs versus mobile units, scheduled transport versus on demand transport, and standard online access versus assisted digital access.

The design must focus on outcomes that can be observed within a reasonable period after implementation begins. Potential outcomes include service uptake, coverage of underserved groups, cost per beneficiary reached and user satisfaction. Long term effects that cannot be measured within the relevant implementation cycle are not suitable as the sole basis for an experimental design.

Required outputs

The contractor must produce at least one NRPP ready experimental design for each of three Member States and a transferable LEAP Kit for use by managing authorities across the European Union.

The principal deliverables are:

Deliverables

1. Inception report, including the work plan, meeting schedule, country selection methodology, diagnostic methodology, proposed structure for the experimental designs and proposed LEAP Kit structure.

2. Recommendation on the selection of the three participating Member States, with a written assessment of their expressions of interest.

3. Three country diagnostics covering the investment context, underserved groups, legal and administrative conditions, data availability, possible intervention and comparison units, and statistical feasibility including power calculations.

4. Workshop design notes and three country workshop reports, including an agreed structured outline for each experimental design.

5. Three NRPP ready experimental designs for inclusion in the participating Member States’ 2028 to 2034 plans.

6. Report from the joint synthesis event.

7. LEAP Kit, comprising practical guidance and country case studies.

8. Draft final report presenting the results, experimental designs and LEAP Kit.

9. Final report incorporating Commission comments, together with presentation files and supporting calculations and documents.

Scope of the experimental designs

Each design must address a clearly defined access to services problem and include a theory of change, target population or territory, delivery approach, institutional beneficiary structure, intervention and comparison units, and the proposed causal identification strategy.

The designs must also cover implementation arrangements, rollout method, monitoring, data collection, data integration, outcome indicators, analytical methods, regulatory integration into the NRPP, ethical safeguards, equity considerations, risks, managing authority readiness and any ancillary activities that may need to be procured separately.

The contractor must identify whether machine learning, artificial intelligence or other non standard data processing methods are required. Where artificial intelligence is used in preparing outputs, the use must be disclosed, including the tool name and version, how it was used and who verified the output. Compliance with applicable European Union law, transparency and replicability are required.

The LEAP Kit must provide a decision tree for choosing an experimental design, guidance on intervention and comparison units, outcome measurement, data acquisition and management, mixed evaluator and programmer teams, ethics and equity safeguards, model NRPP language, adaptive learning, scaling, replication, capacity building and possible outsourcing. It must also include summaries of the three national experimental designs.

Expected work programme

The work is structured around three parallel country workstreams, with separate teams for each participating Member State and continuous cross country coordination. The three countries will be selected by DG REGIO from Member State expressions of interest. The contractor will assess and recommend countries, but the final selection remains with the Commission.

The principal activities are:

1. Kick off meeting and inception planning.

2. Assessment and recommendation of the three participating Member States.

3. Launch seminar in Brussels covering experimental methods, evidence on access to services, the proposed 2028 to 2034 regulatory context, country investment portfolios and ethical issues.

4. Country diagnostics for each participating Member State.

5. One in country workshop of one to two days for each Member State.

6. Co design and drafting of the three NRPP ready experimental designs.

7. Joint synthesis event in Brussels involving the participating countries and members of the Evaluation Network.

8. Preparation of the LEAP Kit, draft final report, online seminar and final report.

Indicative timetable after contract entry into force

The inception report and country selection recommendation are due approximately two weeks after contract entry into force. The launch seminar is planned for month two, country diagnostics for month three, country workshops for month five, experimental designs for month six, the joint synthesis event for month seven, the LEAP Kit and draft final report for month eight, and the online seminar and final report for month nine.

Applicant and consortium eligibility

The opportunity is open to economic operators capable of providing the required services. This can include private consultancies, research organisations, universities, public or private policy institutes and other legally established entities with relevant professional, technical and financial capacity. Natural persons may also be possible where they meet the requirements, although the scale and multi country structure make an individual bid less likely to be competitive.

Tenders may be submitted by a sole tenderer or by a group of tenderers. Each organisation participating in a joint tender must be registered in the European Commission Participant Register and must use a valid Participant Identification Code. The group should provide the required agreement or power of attorney and clearly allocate responsibilities.

Subcontracting is possible where permitted by the procurement documents. Identified subcontractors and entities whose capacity is relied upon must be disclosed and must satisfy the applicable exclusion, selection, restrictive measures and commitment requirements.

The tender specifications indicate that the tenderer must have legal and regulatory capacity to perform the contract, satisfy the applicable economic and financial criteria, and demonstrate the required technical and professional capacity. The exact thresholds and documentary evidence must be checked in the current tender specifications and annexes before submission.

Relevant exclusion and compliance requirements

The declaration on honour addresses bankruptcy or insolvency, unpaid taxes or social security contributions, grave professional misconduct, fraud, corruption, criminal organisation, money laundering, terrorism related offences, trafficking and child labour, serious contractual deficiencies, irregularities, circumvention of legal obligations, resistance to audits and other exclusion situations.

The declaration also covers persons with powers of representation, decision making or control, beneficial owners, persons with unlimited liability where relevant, prior involvement in preparing the procurement documents, restrictive measures, established debts to the European Union and independent preparation of the submitted tender.

Evidence may include recent judicial records, tax and social security certificates, equivalent official documents and evidence of remedial measures. The Commission may request evidence within a short deadline. Tenderers should prepare this material in advance even where it is not required at initial submission.

Technical and professional capacity expected

A competitive tender should demonstrate strong capability in causal inference and experimental evaluation, preferably randomised controlled trials, as well as practical knowledge of cohesion policy, ERDF, the Cohesion Fund, the Just Transition Fund and managing authority operations.

The team should collectively cover public service delivery, regional and territorial development, programme design, monitoring and evaluation, quantitative methods, power calculations, administrative data, data governance, ethics, stakeholder facilitation and preparation of policy guidance for non technical audiences.

The tender must identify the proposed team, describe the qualifications and skills of each member, quantify each person’s input in days and explain the division of work. Because the participating Member States will not be known when the tender is submitted, the tender must explain how the contractor will provide flexible language capacity across different national contexts.

All deliverables are submitted in English. The three NRPP ready experimental designs must additionally be made available in the national language of each participating Member State. Meetings and events are conducted in English, while interpretation for Member State participants is the responsibility of the participating Member State.

Financial structure and payment

This is a price based procurement contract rather than co financing. The Commission will pay the successful contractor for accepted contractual deliverables. There is therefore no grant funding rate, beneficiary co financing percentage or standard reimbursement rate for applicants.

The payment schedule in the tender specifications is linked to deliverable approval:

30 percent upon approval of the country diagnostics, 30 percent upon approval of the experimental designs and 40 percent upon approval of the final report.

The contractor must include within the contract price the resources needed to deliver the assignment. This includes organising and financing the launch seminar, country workshops and joint synthesis event, as well as specified travel, accommodation, venue and catering costs. The Commission will provide a venue for the launch seminar at no cost, while the contractor remains responsible for the other stated operational arrangements.

The tender specifications also state that within three years following contract signature the Commission may use a negotiated procedure to procure similar services from the contractor up to a maximum of 50 percent of the initial contract value, subject to the applicable legal conditions and conformity with the original scope.

Submission requirements

Tenders must be submitted exclusively through the European Commission electronic submission system. Submission by email, post or another channel will be disregarded.

The tenderer and each member of a joint tender must have the necessary Participant Register registration and PIC. An EU Login account is required to access and use the electronic submission system. Tenderers should start registration, confirm organisational data and test the submission process well before the deadline.

The tender must contain all information and documents required by the procurement documents at the time of submission. A tender may be withdrawn or replaced before the deadline, but a replacement tender must contain all required information and documents. Only the latest non withdrawn tender will be considered where more than one tender is submitted.

The tender validity period is six months according to the procurement data. The submitted tender is binding on the successful tenderer and submission constitutes acceptance of the procurement documents and contract terms.

No variants are allowed. Any alternative solution presented as a variant may be disregarded. Tender preparation and submission costs are borne by the tenderer and are not reimbursed.

Evaluation and award considerations

The award places substantially greater weight on technical quality than price. A strong response should therefore provide a detailed, credible and operational methodology rather than relying on a low fee.

1. Translate broad access to services challenges into testable policy hypotheses and feasible interventions.

2. Select and justify randomised or, where necessary, prospective quasi experimental designs.

3. Assess statistical power and the availability of sufficient treatment and comparison units.

4. Work effectively with mixed teams of evaluators, programmers, managing authorities, service providers and territorial bodies.

5. Integrate experimentation into the programme cycle and proposed NRPP regulatory provisions.

6. Protect equity, service continuity, vulnerable groups and ethical standards.

7. Handle administrative data, new data collection, data protection and sustainable data systems.

8. Provide experts with suitable language skills after the participating countries are selected.

9. Deliver accessible, publishable and non technical reports that comply with Commission visual identity and accessibility requirements.

10. Manage the intense nine month timetable and obtain timely approval of multiple interdependent deliverables.

Key risks and implementation challenges

The short nine month duration creates a material delivery risk because the assignment requires three country diagnostics, three workshops, three experimental designs, several in person events and a Commission wide toolkit.

The successful tenderer must mobilise quickly after signature. The first meeting is expected within approximately ten calendar days of contract entry into force, and the inception and country selection outputs follow shortly afterwards.

The participating Member States are not known at tender stage. Bidders must therefore demonstrate a flexible staffing model, access to national language capacity and the ability to adapt methods to different legal, administrative, territorial and data environments.

Experimental feasibility is a central risk. Some interventions may not have enough comparable units, may produce outcomes only over a long period or may lack reliable data. The methodology should include early feasibility screening, alternative intervention options and transparent decision rules for changing the territorial or institutional configuration.

The contract does not include implementation or analysis of the experiments themselves. The contractor prepares the designs and the toolkit, while future managing authorities and other appointed actors will be responsible for implementation and subsequent analysis.

Overall assessment

This is a specialised, high intensity policy evaluation and public management tender suited to a consortium or multidisciplinary organisation with established expertise in experimental methods, cohesion policy, public service delivery and stakeholder engagement.

The opportunity is strategically significant because its outputs are intended to influence how experimentation is embedded in the 2028 to 2034 cohesion policy programming cycle. The strongest bids will combine methodological rigour with practical understanding of programme management, procurement, institutional incentives, ethics, territorial delivery and the realities of Member State administration.

The principal commercial opportunity is a maximum initial contract of €340,000 for nine months. The principal bid challenge is not only proving academic or evaluation expertise, but demonstrating that the team can convert that expertise into three implementable NRPP designs and a usable Commission wide toolkit within a compressed timetable.

Applicant preparation checklist

1. Register or verify the organisation in the European Commission Participant Register and obtain or confirm the PIC.

2. Review the invitation letter, tender specifications, draft contract, security requirements and declaration on honour in their current versions.

3. Decide whether to bid alone or form a consortium covering evaluation, cohesion policy, public services, data, ethics, facilitation and national language capacity.

4. Prepare evidence of legal capacity, financial capacity, technical capacity and professional experience.

5. Build a detailed nine month work plan linked to every deliverable and payment milestone.

6. Explain the approach to randomised controlled trials, quasi experimental alternatives, power calculations and causal inference.

7. Set out a credible method for selecting and supporting the three Member States.

8. Include a flexible language and expert mobilisation plan because the countries are not identified in advance.

9. Budget all seminars, workshops, travel, accommodation, catering, venues, interpretation interfaces, data work and project management within the maximum contract value.

10. Submit only through eSubmission and retain the official submission receipt and timestamp.

11. Monitor the Funding and Tenders Portal for amendments, clarifications and published questions and answers until the deadline.

Source and document set

The official opportunity record, invitation letter, tender specifications, declaration on honour, draft direct services contract and security requirements annex are available through the European Commission Funding and Tenders Portal 1.

European Commission Funding and Tenders Portal, LEAP tender