Mapping data sources relevant to occupational exposure to cancer risk factors in the EU

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) plans a negotiated middle/low value service procurement (OSHA/2026/MVP/0034-EXA) to map EU data sources on occupational exposure to cancer risk factors, assess comparability with the Workers’ Exposure Survey (WES) and produce inventories, feasibility assessments and comparison reports. The maximum contract value is €135,000 excluding VAT, the maximum duration is 11 months, and the expression of interest period is 9 October 2026 to 23 October 2026 with electronic submission via the Funding and Tenders Portal. Eligible participants are economic operators acting individually or as consortia; invited candidates may only tender jointly if they expressed interest as a consortium. Deliverables include an inception report, metadata template, interim and full descriptive inventories, feasibility and comparison reports by country and risk factor, executive summaries and presentations.

What is funded

Scope and core deliverables

A negotiated tender to produce a complete descriptive inventory of EU data sources on occupational exposure to cancer risk factors, assess the feasibility of comparing those sources with Workers Exposure Survey (WES) data in six WES countries, and where feasible perform comparisons and critical analyses. Key deliverables: inception report; inventory template; interim and final descriptive inventories (six WES countries and all EU member states); feasibility assessment; comparison reports with critical analysis and country/CRF summaries; executive summaries and presentations.

Footnotes

1. 1Full procurement information and future tender documents will be published on the Funding & Tenders Portal: ec.europa.eu

Opportunity summary

Contracting authority European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) plans a negotiated middle/low value procedure (Ex-ante publicity) to procure services to map EU data sources on occupational exposure to cancer risk factors (CRF) and compare them with Workers' Exposure Survey (WES) data. The planned maximum contract duration is 11 months and the maximum available budget is €135,000 (excluding VAT). Publication of the ex-ante notice does not commit the contracting authority to launch the procurement.

Overall objectives and scope

Deliverables (minimum required)

Cancer risk factors and reference datasets

Cancer risk factors to be considered include carcinogens within the scope of the Carcinogens, Mutagens and Reprotoxic Substances Directive (CMRD) and the 24 specific CRFs included in WES. WES estimates probable exposure during the last working week to 24 known CRFs such as industrial chemicals (1,3-butadiene; acrylamide; diethyl/dimethyl sulphate; epichlorohydrin; ethylene oxide; formaldehyde; ortho-toluidine), metals (arsenic; cadmium; hexavalent chromium; cobalt; lead and inorganic compounds; nickel), mineral oil mists, solvents (benzene; trichloroethylene), inorganic dusts/fibres (asbestos; respirable crystalline silica), organic dusts (leather dust, wood dust), products of combustion (diesel engine exhaust emissions) and radiation (ionising radiation; artificial UV radiation; solar UV radiation). WES data will be made available to the contractor by the contracting authority after contract signature and the WES dataset is accessible for research after registration at the GESIS repository WES dataset 1.

Eligible applicant types

Eligible applicants are economic operators able to deliver research, mapping and comparative analysis services. The notice explicitly allows expression of interest from single organisations or consortia. Likely eligible applicant types include: research organisations and universities, specialised consultancies in occupational health and epidemiology, SMEs and large companies offering R&D and data analytics services, non-profit research institutes, and public bodies acting as economic operators where permitted. Individuals cannot submit unless acting as an economic operator; partnerships/consortia are explicitly permitted if declared at expression of interest stage.

Funding type and contract nature

This opportunity is a procurement contract (service contract) awarded following a negotiated procedure for a middle/low value contract. The contracting modality is procurement rather than a grant, loan, equity or voucher. The mechanism is a paid services contract for research and consultancy.

Consortium requirement

Consortium is optional. Applicants may express interest as a single organisation or as a consortium. Important: invited candidates may submit a joint tender with other economic operators only if they expressed interest initially as a consortium. In practice this means: expression of interest may be individual or group; to tender jointly later, the expression of interest must have been made as a consortium.

Beneficiary geographic scope

Beneficiaries must be economic operators able to operate under EU procurement rules. The project targets data across EU member states and the contracting authority is an EU agency; geographic eligibility therefore covers organisations established in EU member states and other entities permitted under the procurement rules and the Funding & Tenders Portal registration requirements. The required mapping covers all EU member states, with specific feasibility analyses for Germany, Ireland, Spain, France, Hungary and Finland.

Target sector and disciplines

Project stage and expected maturity

This is a secondary data mapping, assessment and comparative analysis project. Expected project maturity: research, validation and demonstration of comparability. It focuses on analysis of existing datasets rather than primary data collection or commercialization.

Funding amount and contract duration

Application and selection procedure

This is an ex-ante publicity notice for a planned negotiated procedure (middle/low value). The expression of interest stage is electronic via the Funding & Tenders Portal and requires an EU Login account. Candidates must submit expressions of interest between the announced start and deadline. Invited candidates will be selected and then invited to tender under the negotiated procedure. Submissions for the expression of interest must be sent exclusively through the specified electronic address on the portal.

Application type and stages

Nature of support and contract model

Beneficiaries will receive financial remuneration under a service contract (money paid for services rendered). The contract funds the delivery of research, mapping and reporting services rather than providing grants or non-monetary services only.

Co-funding and financial requirements

No co-funding requirement is stated in the ex-ante notice. The contract is priced against the maximum available budget of €135,000. Tenderers should budget project activities and costs within this maximum. VAT is excluded from the maximum contract value. Normal procurement financial guarantees, invoicing and payment conditions will be specified in the tender documents.

Templates and application documentation

Procurement documents, technical specifications and participation rules will be published on the Funding & Tenders Portal when the tender is launched. As part of deliverables, the contractor must produce a template for capturing metadata from each data source (this template is a required deliverable). Tender submission templates and evaluation criteria will be provided in the official tender dossier at launch. EU Login is required to access documents and submit expressions of interest and tenders.

Project technical requirements and recommended expertise

Mentioned countries

Germany, Ireland, Spain, France, Hungary, Finland. The mapping deliverable must cover all EU member states; these six countries are the focus for feasibility assessments and comparisons with WES.

Project outputs and reporting expectations

Outputs must include the inception report, metadata capture template, interim descriptive inventory (six WES countries), full EU descriptive inventory, feasibility assessment per country and CRF, comparative analysis per country and CRF where feasible, executive summaries, and presentation materials. Reports must document methodology, limitations, data quality and accessibility considerations, and deliver clear conclusions and recommendations regarding comparability and the utility of alternative data sources to complement WES.

Success rates and competition

No success rate or number of expected awards is provided in the notice. As a single services contract with a maximum budget of €135,000, the likely outcome is that one contractor will be selected. Competition will depend on the number and quality of expressions of interest and invited tenders.

Other procurement details

The planned procurement method is a negotiated procedure for a middle/low value contract. Submissions for expression of interest must be electronic via the Funding & Tenders Portal using EU Login. Additional participation rules and the full subject matter will be available in the tender dossier at the indicated portal link Procurement notice 2.

Checklist for prospective applicants

Relevant links and data access

WES data for research registration and access is referenced at the GESIS repository WES dataset 1. Full procurement notice and further information will be available on the Funding & Tenders Portal Procurement notice 2.

Footnotes

1. 1WES dataset is referenced for research access at the GESIS repository: search.gesis.org
2. 2Full procurement notice and procedural documents will be available on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal: ec.europa.eu

Mapping data sources relevant to occupational exposure to cancer risk factors in the EU

Opportunity summary

This is a planned EU-OSHA service procurement for research and consultancy work mapping data sources on occupational exposure to cancer risk factors across the EU and assessing their comparability with Workers’ Exposure Survey data. The work is intended to improve the evidence base for occupational cancer prevention, policy development, exposure assessment and recognition of work-related cancer. The notice is an ex ante publicity notice and does not itself constitute an invitation to tender or a commitment by EU-OSHA to launch the procurement procedure. 1

The planned procedure is a negotiated low or middle value procedure for services under CPV 73000000, Research and development services and related consultancy services. The contracting authority is the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, EU-OSHA.

Key procurement facts

The main commercial and procedural details are set out below.

Scope and objectives

The contractor will be expected to create an EU wide evidence inventory and then assess whether the information can be meaningfully compared with WES data. The assignment has three connected objectives.

1. Identify and describe relevant data sources in EU Member States and at EU level, including their coverage, variables, exposure information, language, reference date, country, sector coverage, data format, accessibility and ownership.

2. Assess, for each of Germany, Ireland, Spain, France, Hungary and Finland and for each of the 24 WES cancer risk factors, whether a meaningful comparison with other data sources is feasible. The analysis must explain limitations relating to population, risk factor coverage, detail, methodology, relevance, quality and accessibility.

3. Compare WES exposure data with corresponding information from other data sources where the feasibility assessment concludes that a comparison is meaningful. The comparison must identify similarities, differences and discrepancies and draw conclusions about relevance and quality.

WES context

WES is a central reference dataset for the assignment. It estimates probable exposure during the last working week to 24 cancer risk factors in six EU Member States: Germany, Ireland, Spain, France, Hungary and Finland. The survey obtained 24,402 valid interviews and uses task and job information to estimate exposure probability rather than relying solely on direct workplace measurements. This means that methodological comparability, timing, population coverage and the distinction between probable exposure and measured exposure will be central issues for the contractor. 2

The 24 risk factors are listed below.

The project should also consider carcinogens within the scope of the EU Carcinogens, Mutagens and Reprotoxic Substances Directive, in addition to the 24 WES risk factors, where relevant to the data mapping and comparison work.

Required deliverables

The notice specifies a substantial package of analytical, reporting and communication outputs.

Who can apply or express interest

Economic operators may express interest as an individual organisation or as a consortium. The notice does not provide a grant style beneficiary definition because this is a public procurement procedure. The successful participant will be a contractor rather than a grant beneficiary.

The consortium decision is strategically important. An invited candidate may submit a joint tender with other economic operators only if the candidate expressed interest in the planned procedure as a consortium. Organisations intending to rely on complementary expertise, national access or subcontracting and consortium capacities should therefore establish their intended participation structure before submitting the expression of interest.

The notice does not state that applicants must be established in a particular Member State, nor does it publish detailed minimum financial, technical or professional selection criteria. Those requirements should be checked in the future negotiated procedure documents if and when EU-OSHA launches the procedure.

Likely capability profile

The strongest candidates are likely to combine the following capabilities.

Methodological and delivery considerations

The assignment is broad relative to the budget and duration. A credible proposal would need a transparent prioritisation method, a standardised inventory template and a clear distinction between data sources that are merely discoverable and data sources that are accessible, usable and comparable.

Comparisons should avoid treating different data types as directly interchangeable. WES is a cross sectional survey estimating probable exposure, while other sources may contain workplace measurements, inspections, occupational disease notifications, compensation records, biomonitoring results, job exposure matrices, cancer registries or administrative employment data. Differences in purpose, sampling, exposure definitions and observation periods may prevent a statistically valid comparison even where the same risk factor is nominally covered.

The contractor should make comparison decisions explicit at country and risk factor level. A useful output would classify each potential comparison as feasible, feasible with material limitations, descriptive only, or not meaningful, with a written justification and a confidence assessment.

Data access and governance

EU-OSHA indicates that WES documentation will be provided in the technical specifications and that WES data will be made available to the contractor after the contract enters into force. The WES dataset is also described as accessible for research purposes after registration. Applicants should not assume that every national or EU source will be openly downloadable. The inventory should record ownership, licensing, registration, approval requirements, fees, language, format, personal data restrictions and whether access can realistically be obtained during the contract period. 3

The work may involve personal data, confidential workplace information or restricted administrative data. The future tender documents should be checked for specific data protection, confidentiality, security, ethics, intellectual property and publication requirements. A proposal should include a data management and information security approach even though detailed requirements are not included in the ex ante notice.

Budget and commercial analysis

The maximum budget of €135,000 excluding VAT should be treated as the ceiling for the complete 11 month assignment. No co financing rate, grant percentage, advance payment rate or eligible cost model is specified because this is a procurement contract rather than a grant.

The budget must cover project management, research, national and multilingual desk work, data access or registration costs where applicable, methodological analysis, quality assurance, report preparation, editing, visualisation, presentations, travel if required and all consortium or subcontractor arrangements. At the maximum value, the average budget equivalent is approximately €12,273 per month before VAT, although actual resource use will not necessarily be uniform across months.

Given the requirement to cover all EU Member States while performing detailed comparisons for six countries and 24 risk factors, bidders should demonstrate how the work will be delivered efficiently. A hub and network model using national experts, a common data extraction template and centralised quality control would be a credible approach. The proposal should also explain how inconsistent national terminology and incomplete or inaccessible sources will be handled.

Indicative work plan

The following sequencing is recommended for an 11 month contract.

Key risks for applicants

Recommended preparation actions

Overall assessment

This is a specialised research services opportunity suited to an organisation or consortium with strong occupational exposure science, comparative data analysis and EU wide research coordination capabilities. It is not a conventional funding call and does not provide a percentage funding rate. The commercial opportunity is capped at €135,000 excluding VAT for an 11 month assignment, with the principal competitive challenge being to deliver comprehensive EU coverage and defensible country by risk factor comparisons within a relatively constrained budget.

The opportunity is particularly relevant to universities, public research bodies, occupational health institutes, specialist consultancies, research networks and data science organisations that can combine central analytical capacity with national expertise. Applicants should focus on methodological comparability, source verification, access feasibility, quality assessment and practical usefulness for prevention policy rather than simply producing a catalogue of databases.

Official information

The authoritative procurement record is available through the EU Funding and Tenders Portal. The EU-OSHA procurement page provides additional subject matter and participation information, while EU-OSHA’s occupational cancer research pages provide context on WES and related work. 4

Footnotes

1. 1Official EU Funding and Tenders Portal record: Funding and Tenders Portal opportunity
2. 2EU-OSHA information on WES methodology and the 24 risk factors: Occupational cancer risk factors in Europe
3. 3EU-OSHA WES research data information: WES research dataset
4. 4EU-OSHA procurement and thematic information: EU-OSHA procurement information and EU-OSHA occupational exposure research