The provision of pan-European bird observation data, indicators, mapping products, capacity building and scientific support for EU environmental polic...

The European Commission Directorate-General for Environment invites tenders (procedure EC-ENV/2026/OP/0038) for a service contract to deliver pan‑European bird observation data aggregation, annual and species indicators, distribution and weekly mapping products, a Special Protection Areas viewer, scientific support and capacity building. The contract is for up to 48 months with a maximum budget of €650,000 and requires public, open data outputs and documented, reproducible methods. Submission is electronic via the Funding & Tenders Portal by 23 November 2026 at 16:00 Brussels time and award will follow a best price-quality ratio with a technical threshold of 65/100. Eligible natural or legal persons and consortia may apply subject to the specified legal, financial and technical selection criteria.

What it funds

Scope and key outputs

Who can apply

Open procedure. Any natural or legal person or consortium may tender (sole tenderer or joint tender). Tenderers must register in the EC Participant Register (PIC) and submit electronically via the EU Funding & Tenders Portal. Subcontracting is allowed; joint tenderers are jointly and severally liable.

Important practical facts

Tender documents (invitation, tender specifications, draft contract) and Q&A are on the Funding & Tenders Portal link above; an EU Login account is required to submit and to ask questions during the submission period Tender portal. 1

Footnotes

1. 1Full procurement documents, delivery schedule, reporting and payment milestones are published in the call folder on the Funding & Tenders Portal. See the tender page for deadlines, technical specifications and Annexes Tender details.

Detailed scope and required services

The contract covers the full operational service to aggregate, harmonise, validate, model and publish bird observation data and derived products for the territory of EU Member States. Key outputs and tasks required in the technical specifications include: production and annual updates of EU-level common bird indicators (Common birds, Farmland, Forest, Urban), national indicators, annual species population size and trend data for at least the 170 Common Bird species defined by EBCC, development/production of a Waterbird indicator and annual breeding waterbird trends, production of species-specific indicators, methodological and technical documentation, daily aggregation of observations from national and regional portals, public availability of data and derived products via online interfaces and APIs, production of periodic breeding distribution and distribution-change maps for at least 200 species (modelled maps envisaged at ~10 x 10 km resolution where feasible), weekly distribution and relative-abundance products for a minimum of 150 species (up to 300), development of a public web viewer including Special Protection Areas breeding information and download capability for national competent authorities, scientific and technical assistance to the Commission and Member States (including minimum 10 meetings per year and support to EEA data transfer), training and capacity building in Member States, and publication/dissemination activities (including peer-reviewed scientific article(s)).

Deliverables, schedule and payments

Technical, legal and operational requirements

Eligibility, selection and award

Selection criteria and minimum capacities (as specified)

Legal, economic and technical selection requirements are stated in the tender specifications. Key minimums include:

Award evaluation framework

Submission and administrative instructions

Submissions must be uploaded exclusively via eSubmission on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal. Economic operators must be registered in the Participant Register and have a PIC. Tenders must include all required documents listed in Annex 1 (Declaration on Honour, evidence for exclusion and selection criteria where requested, administrative information form, technical tender and financial tender using the provided Financial Model, lists of identified subcontractors and commitment letters, agreement/power of attorney for joint tenders, and language/experience evidence). File size limits and supported file types are given in eSubmission system requirements. eSubmission generates a submission receipt with timestamp which is the proof of on-time submission.

Key dates and contacts

Templates and application structure guidance

The procurement documentation contains mandatory templates and annexes to structure the tender submission. Key templates are: Annex 1 (list of documents to upload and where to upload in eSubmission), Annex 2 (Declaration on Honour on exclusion and selection criteria), Annex 3 (Agreement/Power of Attorney for joint tenders), Annex 4 (List of identified subcontractors and proportion of subcontracting), Annex 5.1 (commitment letter by identified subcontractor), Annex 5.2 (commitment letter by entity on whose capacities the tenderer relies), Annex 6 (Financial tender form — use the provided financial model and include breakdown with staff, subcontractors, travel lump sums), Annex 7 (travel and subsistence ceilings per country) and Annex 8 (Administrative Information Form). All required documents identified in Annex 1 must be uploaded in the correct eSubmission sections to avoid rejection.

Risk areas and evaluation considerations

Tenderers should note the contracting authority’s emphasis on transparency, reproducibility and open data. Risk areas that will be evaluated include data availability and agreements with national data providers; appropriateness and robustness of modelling approaches; ability to deliver weekly and near-daily products at the proposed spatial and temporal resolution; documentation and metadata; long-term maintainability and service continuity; data protection arrangements and compliance with Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 for any personal data processing; and clarity on pre-existing rights and licences for any third-party components.

Practical tips for bidders

The Commission has published Invitation Letter, Tender Specifications (with annexes) and Draft Contract. Those documents are the authoritative source for all mandatory requirements and contractual terms and must be consulted in full in preparing a tender. The English versions constitute the sole authentic texts; the contracting authority encourages submission in any official EU language but supporting procurement documents are in English.

Further information, subscription to the call and document downloads are available on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal tender details page for EC-ENV/2026/OP/0038. Public Q&A and system notes are provided in the Portal and any questions should be submitted through the Portal Questions & Answers function before the stated cut-off date for answers. 1

Summary — what is this opportunity about and how to approach it?

This is a public procurement opportunity from the European Commission DG ENV to contract a pan-European operational service to aggregate bird observation data daily from national and regional portals, produce and update EU and national bird indicators (Common, Farmland, Forest, Urban, Waterbird and species-specific indicators), provide distribution maps and weekly distribution/relative abundance products, maintain a public web viewer and APIs, provide scientific and technical assistance to the Commission and Member States, and deliver capacity-building activities for national schemes. The contract is for up to 48 months with a maximum budget of €650,000 and will be awarded on the basis of best price-quality ratio. Bidders must demonstrate strong technical experience in bird monitoring, data processing and modelling, software and mapping publishing, quality assurance and capacity building. Tenderers should carefully follow the required annex templates, provide the evidence requested for exclusion and selection criteria, present a clear methodology and resource allocation for delivering daily updates, weekly products and annual indicators, and submit a fully completed financial form within the stated maximum value. Use the EU Funding & Tenders Portal and eSubmission system to download documents, ask clarifying questions within the deadlines, and submit the tender on time.

Footnotes

1. 1Portal reference and official documents: The full procurement package (Invitation letter, Tender specifications and annexes, Draft contract) and procedural information are available on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal tender details page for EC-ENV/2026/OP/0038 (ec.europa.eu). Refer to those documents for the legally binding requirements.

The provision of pan-European bird observation data, indicators, mapping products, capacity building and scientific support for EU environmental policy is a European Commission public procurement opportunity for specialist environmental, ornithological, statistical, data engineering and scientific support services. It is a service contract rather than a grant, so the successful tenderer will be paid for delivering the specified services and outputs rather than receiving project co-financing.

The procurement is managed by the European Commission Directorate-General for Environment under procedure EC-ENV/2026/OP/0038. The official opportunity and procurement documents are available on the Funding and Tenders Portal opportunity page.

Opportunity profile

Policy purpose and strategic relevance

The contract is intended to maintain and expand a pan-European evidence and data service supporting EU biodiversity, bird conservation, agricultural, forestry, urban greening and nature restoration policy. Its central purpose is to ensure continuity in the production and updating of EU Common Bird Indicators while improving the availability, timeliness, transparency and practical policy use of bird observation data.

The outputs will support implementation and monitoring of the Birds Directive, the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, the Nature Restoration Regulation, the 8th Environment Action Programme and related reporting and assessment obligations. The farmland and forest indicators are particularly relevant to monitoring biodiversity trends in agricultural and forest ecosystems, while the urban indicator is relevant to urban ecosystem restoration and urban greening objectives.

The procurement also seeks to establish or maintain a publicly accessible European service that aggregates bird observations from national and regional portals and provides observation data and derived products on an almost daily basis. This makes the opportunity relevant to organisations able to combine biodiversity monitoring, citizen science or professional survey data, statistical modelling, geospatial analysis, data platforms and policy support.

Core objectives

The successful contractor will be expected to deliver the following objectives.

Technical scope and expected outputs

Indicator production

Existing EU level indicators must be updated annually, including the EU Common Bird Indicator and the farmland, forest and urban bird indicators. National indicators for common, farmland and forest birds must also be updated annually. The contractor must provide population size and trend information, species-specific indicators, methodological documentation, metadata and interpretation notes in formats ready for publication and reuse.

Indicator updates must normally be submitted within 12 months after the end of the relevant annual monitoring season. The reporting format and detailed information requirements, including matters such as confidence intervals, will be agreed with the Commission during the first six months of the contract.

Mapping and online services

The contractor must combine observation and monitoring datasets using documented methods to produce breeding occurrence and distribution change information. The indicative target is at least 30 by 30 kilometre resolution for short-period breeding occurrence products and at least 10 by 10 kilometre resolution for modelled distribution and change maps, with finer resolution where possible. Tenderers must state the proposed species coverage, update frequency and achievable resolution.

Weekly distribution products must include observed weekly maps and, where feasible, modelled relative abundance or occurrence products. The service must provide metadata, legends and technical documentation sufficient for interpretation and reuse.

The Special Protection Area viewer should enable national and regional nature conservation authorities to consult and download relevant information for further analysis. The expected coverage includes Annex I and migratory bird species where feasible.

Capacity building and scientific support

The contractor must provide ongoing technical assistance, participate in at least 10 meetings with Member States, stakeholders, Commission services or other institutions, prepare briefings and technical notes, explain methods and outputs, support biodiversity and restoration reporting, and facilitate knowledge transfer to the European Environment Agency.

Training and capacity building activities must support national partners, Member States and stakeholders in data collection, analysis, national index production and use of the online platforms and viewers. The cost of organising the relevant workshops and training activities must be covered within the contract price.

Minimum deliverables

Public access, open data and intellectual property

All data, metadata, derived datasets, indicators, maps, reports, visualisations and documentation produced or maintained under the contract must be publicly accessible and free of charge through online interfaces and, where relevant, machine readable downloads or APIs.

The contractor must use open, standard and reusable formats wherever possible, provide complete metadata, document map services and APIs, and maintain access throughout the contract. Where sensitive species, personal data or third party rights prevent publication of raw records, the contractor must maximise lawful access through aggregation, masking, anonymisation or other appropriate measures.

The contractor must identify pre existing tools, code, data and third party components that will not be transferred. The Commission will receive broad rights to use, reproduce, publish, adapt and disseminate the deliverables for public interest purposes, subject to the draft contract and applicable rights restrictions.

Budget, pricing and payment conditions

The maximum budget is €650,000 excluding VAT. This amount includes fees, travel, subsistence and all other costs required to perform the services. Travel and subsistence costs must be included in the tender price and will not be reimbursed separately. Any tender exceeding the maximum budget may be rejected as unacceptable.

The financial tender must be submitted in euros, exclusive of VAT, duties and other charges, using the financial model in the tender specifications. Prices cannot be revised to reflect exchange rate movements, so non euro area tenderers bear the associated currency risk.

The payment structure provides for an interim payment of up to 20 percent after acceptance of the inception report, annual payments of 20 percent after acceptance of each annual report and a final payment of 20 percent after acceptance of the final report. The payment schedule should be checked against the draft contract before submission because payment is conditional on formal acceptance of the relevant deliverable.

Within three years after contract signature, the Commission may use a negotiated procedure to procure similar additional services from the contractor up to a maximum of 50 percent of the initial contract value. This potential additional procurement is not guaranteed and should not be treated as committed revenue.

Who can apply

Any eligible natural or legal person offering the required services may submit a tender as a sole tenderer or as a group of economic operators. Joint tenders are permitted, and members of a successful joint tender assume joint and several liability for contract performance. A group must appoint a group leader and submit the required agreement or powers of attorney.

Participation is open to persons established in EU Member States, international organisations and eligible third country operators covered by the applicable EU procurement access rules, relevant international agreements, the World Trade Organization Government Procurement Agreement or eligible LIFE Programme participation arrangements. All involved entities and subcontractors must comply with EU restrictive measures and exclusion rules.

The opportunity is not specifically reserved for SMEs. The procurement data indicates that it is not considered SME suitable, although SMEs may participate individually, in consortia or as subcontractors if they can meet the requirements or combine capacities appropriately.

Eligibility and selection requirements

Legal capacity

The tenderer must be a natural or legal person with the legal capacity to perform the contract. The sole tenderer or group leader must provide proof of enrolment in a relevant trade or professional register or proof of authorisation to perform the contract in the country of establishment.

Economic and financial capacity

The tenderer must demonstrate average annual turnover above €325,000 during the last two completed financial years. This criterion is assessed on a consolidated basis across the involved entities contributing to the capacity.

The required evidence consists of copies of profit and loss accounts and balance sheets for the relevant entities for the last two financial years for which accounts have closed. If these are unavailable, appropriate bank statements may be accepted. The most recent financial year must have closed within the previous 18 months.

Technical and professional capacity

The technical and professional capacity requirements may be met through the combined capacities of the tenderer, group members and identified subcontractors. However, entities whose technical capacity is relied upon must perform the services for which that capacity is required.

Tender structure and subcontracting

A tender may be submitted by one economic operator or by a consortium. A natural or legal person cannot participate simultaneously as a sole tenderer and as a member of another group, or as a member of more than one group, in the same procedure. Tenders must be prepared independently and autonomously.

Subcontracting is permitted, but the contractor remains fully responsible for the whole contract. Subcontractors must be identified where the tenderer relies on their capacities or where their individual intended share is above 20 percent. Identified subcontractors must provide the required commitment letters.

A tenderer may rely on other entities that are not subcontractors to meet selection criteria if it demonstrates that the necessary resources will be available. Abstract or unsupported commitments will not be accepted. Where economic or financial capacity is supplied by another entity, the Commission may require that entity to sign the contract or provide a joint and several first call financial guarantee.

Award and evaluation

The quality tender should go beyond repeating the mandatory specifications. It should explain the proposed data architecture, data ingestion and harmonisation, statistical and modelling methods, quality controls, uncertainty treatment, reproducibility, governance, stakeholder coordination, operational continuity, open data delivery, security, data protection and knowledge transfer.

A tender must meet every mandatory requirement. Non compliant tenders may be rejected without full evaluation. The Commission may reject abnormally low tenders or decide not to select any tender if the amounts offered exceed the available budget.

Submission requirements and procedure

Tenders must be submitted exclusively through the eSubmission application accessible from the official Funding and Tenders Portal. Submissions by email, post or other means will be disregarded. A European Commission EU Login account and registration in the Participant Register are required.

Each participating organisation must have a valid nine digit Participant Identification Code. Existing PICs should be reused. The tenderer should verify its organisation data, legal status and SME status in the Participant Register before submission.

The tender must include the technical tender, financial tender using the prescribed model, declarations on honour, legal capacity evidence, financial capacity evidence, technical and professional references, team evidence, subcontractor information where applicable, commitment letters and any joint tender agreement or power of attorney required by the procurement documents.

Documents requiring signature must be hand signed or preferably signed using a qualified electronic signature. Evidence of signatory authorisation is required for declarations on honour and joint tender agreements or powers of attorney. Tenderers should retain originals of hand signed documents for the required record keeping period.

A tender may be withdrawn or replaced before the deadline, but a replacement tender must contain all required information and documents. No more than one non withdrawn tender can be considered per tenderer. The eSubmission receipt timestamp is the evidence of timely submission, so tenderers should upload and submit well before the deadline.

Key risks and conditions for applicants

Recommended bid strategy

Key dates and actions

Overall assessment

This is a highly specialised, technically demanding procurement suited to an established research institute, bird monitoring network, environmental data service provider, university led consortium, conservation organisation or partnership combining these capabilities. The opportunity is attractive for organisations with existing pan-European data relationships and operational infrastructure, but it is unlikely to be suitable for an organisation without completed large scale bird monitoring references, multilingual delivery capacity, national coverage, statistical expertise and the ability to operate a public data service for four years.

The strongest tenders will demonstrate not only scientific credibility but also reliable service operations, transparent and reproducible methods, practical interoperability with Commission and European Environment Agency systems, high quality open data delivery, stakeholder acceptance and a well evidenced approach to continuity and risk management. The decisive commercial test is the lowest price to quality ratio among tenders that meet all minimum requirements and achieve at least 65 quality points.

The official procurement documents, including the invitation letter, tender specifications and draft contract, should be treated as authoritative for final eligibility, evidence, contractual and submission requirements. Official opportunity and submission portal