Unlocking the impact of Regional Centres of Excellence (RcoEs)

This is a public procurement tender issued by the European Commission Joint Research Centre to commission an 8-month service to develop an Africa-specific taxonomy of research infrastructures, build and validate an AI-based methodology to identify and classify research infrastructures and facilities within Regional Centres of Excellence, and identify opportunities for high-impact investment. Submission is electronic via the EU Funding & Tenders Portal with a registration deadline of 2026-08-31 and a planned procurement date in early September 2026; bidders must consult the tender dossier for exact award and selection criteria. Eligible applicants are legal entities or consortia with demonstrated capacity in AI and data science (including web and publication scraping), bibliometrics/scientometrics, qualitative social research, stakeholder engagement, and regional African expertise. The opportunity is a services contract under procurement rules and the estimated budget is not specified in the public summary.

What the contract funds

Scope summary

A service contract to design and apply methods to assess and unlock research infrastructure (RI) capacity within African Regional Centres of Excellence. Key tasks are: (1) develop an Africa-aware taxonomy of RIs; (2) build and validate an AI-based tool to identify and classify RIs and facilities within RCoEs, complemented by qualitative data collection (surveys, interviews, workshops) to test and refine the tool; (3) develop and apply a methodology to identify opportunities for impactful RI investments.

Who can apply:Commercial and non-commercial legal entities able to deliver mixed qualitative and quantitative research services, AI-driven data analysis, stakeholder engagement and policy-relevant recommendations; procurement led by the European Commission Joint Research Centre (DG JRC) ¹.

1. 1Contract type: services tender managed by EC JRC.
2. 2Duration: planned 8 months.
3. 3Methods required: AI-driven scraping and analysis, surveys, interviews, workshops, qualitative validation.

Applications must follow the Funding & Tenders Portal submission procedures and meet procurement requirements in the tender dossier; SMEs suitability indicator marked false, so consortiums or specialised contractors are appropriate. ¹

Footnotes

1. 1Official tender page and documents are available on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal: ec.europa.eu

Basic Opportunity Details

Opportunity Title:Unlocking the impact of Regional Centres of Excellence (RcoEs). Tender reference: EC-JRC/SVQ/2026/MVP/4061-EXA. Procuring authority: European Commission, Joint Research Centre (DG JRC). Publication date: 2026-07-28. Planned procurement type: services (CPV main code 73000000). Planned start and duration: planned period 8 months. Submission method: electronic via Funding & Tenders Portal (ESUBMISSION). Registration / submission deadline (registration on portal): 2026-08-31 23:59:59 Europe/Madrid. Planned date (likely publication to tender closure): 2026-09-07 Europe/Madrid. Contract nature: one lot (PAR-0001).

Contract Objectives:The contract has three interlinked objectives: 1) develop a taxonomy of research infrastructures (RIs) that accounts for Africa-specific contexts and particularities; 2) develop and apply an AI-based methodology to identify and classify RIs (and facilities) within Regional Centres of Excellence (RCoEs), complemented by qualitative data collection (surveys, interviews, workshops) to validate, refine and extend the AI-driven outputs; and 3) develop and apply a methodology to identify opportunities for impactful investments in RIs within RCoEs. The work will combine qualitative and quantitative methods including publication scraping and website scraping, surveys, interviews and workshops.

Detailed Eligibility, Funding and Process Information

This is a public procurement (tender) launched by the European Commission JRC. The contracting process will follow the eSubmission route through the Funding and Tenders Portal and is open to entities that satisfy the procurement selection and award criteria defined in the tender dossier accessible in the portal. The tender is part of the EU programmes period 2021-2027 and also references programme period 2014-2020 in metadata. The SME suitability indicator is set to false for this lot.

Eligible Applicant Types:Allowed applicants are suppliers of services to public authorities as defined by the tender (likely legal entities such as universities, research institutes, consultancies, not-for-profits, large enterprises, SMEs where eligible, and consortia of such organisations). The tender is a procurement procedure rather than a grant, so eligible bidders are organisations capable of contracting with the European Commission (public bodies or private legal entities). The tender documentation will set formal selection grounds including legal, financial and technical capacity requirements.

Funding Type:This opportunity is a service contract awarded through public procurement (procurement / tender). It is not a grant, loan or equity instrument. The selected contractor will receive payment under contract terms for deliverables and services.

Consortium Requirement:The procedure allows single contractors or consortia to bid; the metadata defines one procurement lot and does not mandate a consortium. However, given the multidisciplinary scope (taxonomy, AI development, qualitative fieldwork across Africa, stakeholder engagement and investment opportunity analysis) bidders often form consortia combining technical AI/data skills, subject-matter research infrastructure expertise, and local/regional partners in Africa to satisfy technical capacity and geographic coverage requirements.

Beneficiary Scope (Geographic Eligibility):The contracting authority is the European Commission (JRC). The activity focuses on Regional Centres of Excellence in Africa and the taxonomy must account for Africa’s specificities. Bidders may include entities established in EU Member States and potentially third countries depending on the tender rules; the portal and contract documents specify admissible bidders and any nationality restrictions. The target geographic scope for the research and fieldwork is Africa.

Target Sector:Primary thematic sectors: research infrastructure policy, research and innovation (R&I) systems, science policy, and capacity building in Africa. Cross-cutting technical sectors: data science and artificial intelligence, bibliometrics and scientometrics, digital methods (web and publication scraping), qualitative social research, and investment analysis for research infrastructure.

Mentioned Countries:No specific African countries are enumerated in the scraped content. The geographical region explicitly referenced is Africa (Regional Centres of Excellence in Africa). The contracting authority is the European Commission, Joint Research Centre (based in the EU).

Project Stage / Expected Maturity:Expected project stage: analysis, development and validation. The tender covers taxonomy development (conceptual/research design), AI-methodology development and application (data-driven tool development and testing), qualitative validation and extension (surveys, interviews, workshops), and investment-opportunity methodology (analysis and recommendations). Outputs will be analytical and methodological rather than technology product commercialization.

Funding Amount:The tender metadata does not publish an explicit monetary budget in the scraped extract. The requestedTenderTotal field is empty in the provided metadata. Bidders must consult the full procurement documents on the Funding and Tenders Portal to find the contract estimated value, pricing rules and unit/deliverable payment schedule.

Application Type and Submission Method:Application type: open call via public procurement on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal. Submission method: electronic submission (ESUBMISSION) through the Funding & Tenders Portal e-forms and electronic tendering facilities. Deadlines: registration by 2026-08-31 23:59:59 Europe/Madrid; planned procurement date around 2026-09-07. Bidders must use the Portal to obtain tender documentation, submit clarifications and submit their offers.

Nature of Support:The selected supplier will receive monetary remuneration under a public service contract for the delivery of services, deliverables, and reports as defined in the contract. Support is therefore financial (contract payments) for service delivery, plus access to the contracting authority’s technical and policy expertise as needed for project implementation.

Application Stages:Procurement lifecycle stages expected: at minimum one stage for submission and evaluation of bids (technical and financial evaluation). Typical EC service contract procurements include pre-qualification/selection (legal, financial, technical capacity checks) and award phase (evaluation of technical offer and price) — effectively two main assessment stages. The tender metadata shows eForms features and standard procurement procedure elements; the exact number of formal stages and deadlines are defined in the tender dossier.

Success Rates:The tender metadata does not specify historic or expected success rates. As a competitive EU public procurement, success depends on compliance with selection criteria and relative evaluation scores against all received bids. Typical public tender success rates vary widely by competition; bidders should assume a competitive selection and prepare high-quality technical and financial offers.

Co-funding Requirement:No co-funding from bidders is indicated in the provided metadata. This is a fee-for-service procurement: the contracting authority will remunerate the contractor according to contract terms. Bidders must review the draft contract and special conditions in the tender dossier for any financial arrangements, advance payments, or performance guarantees.

Key Methodological and Technical Requirements:Core methodological deliverables required by the tender include: 1) a taxonomy of research infrastructures tailored to African contexts, including definitions, classification criteria and typologies that reflect African institutional and infrastructural specificities; 2) an AI-based methodology and toolchain to identify and classify RIs and facilities within RCoEs using automated data sources (publication scraping, website scraping and other digital footprints) and appropriate machine learning or rule-based classification; 3) qualitative validation activities (surveys, semi-structured interviews, focus groups, workshops) to evaluate the AI tool’s accuracy and to refine classifications; 4) a methodology to identify and prioritise opportunities for impactful investments in RIs at RCoEs, combining technical assessment, strategic impact criteria and context-sensitive investment logic; 5) final reports, datasets, methodological documentation, and presentations to the JRC and stakeholders. The tender requires combined quantitative and qualitative approaches and explicit use of AI-driven data analysis together with field-based validation.

Suggested Consortium Capabilities:Recommended expertise to include in a bid: AI and data science (web scraping, NLP, bibliometrics, ML classification); research infrastructure policy and management expertise; African R&I systems and regional networks knowledge; qualitative social research skills (survey design, interviewing, workshop facilitation); investment analysis and economic appraisal for research infrastructure; project management and dissemination skills; legal and ethical expertise for data collection and processing (GDPR and local data protection compliance). Local/regional partners or subcontracts in Africa are strongly advised for fieldwork and stakeholder engagement.

1. 1Deliverable 1: Taxonomy of research infrastructures adapted to Africa – conceptual framework, classification criteria and examples.
2. 2Deliverable 2: AI-based identification and classification methodology and prototype tool – data pipelines, model descriptions, evaluation metrics.
3. 3Deliverable 3: Qualitative validation and extension – survey instruments, interview reports, workshop summaries, refined classifications.
4. 4Deliverable 4: Investment opportunity methodology – criteria, scoring/prioritisation framework, candidate investment cases.
5. 5Deliverable 5: Final consolidated report, datasets, methodological documentation, recommendations for policy and next steps.

Templates and Application Forms:The tender uses the Funding & Tenders Portal eSubmission system and eForms. Bidders must download the tender dossier and eForms from the portal to access the official tender specifications, award criteria, selection criteria, price schedule template, declaration forms and the contractual terms (draft contract). Typical required documents in EC service contracts include: administrative annexes, legal entity validation (or Participant Identification Code), financial capacity documentation, technical offer (methodology, workplan, staffing, CVs), pricing schedule (rate and total price for the 8-month period), ethical/data protection declarations and signed declarations on exclusion/eligibility. Exact eForm templates and the structure of the technical and financial proposal are published in the tender documents on the portal.

Procurement Evaluation Criteria (typical and expected):While the scraped summary does not reproduce the tender evaluation grid, typical JRC service contract award criteria include: quality of technical approach and methodology (weights often high), relevance and completeness of the workplan and deliverables, competence and experience of key experts, demonstrable experience in similar assignments (AI-for-science, research infrastructure mapping, Africa-related projects), capacity for fieldwork and stakeholder engagement, data protection and ethical compliance, and competitive price. Bidders should consult the tender documents for explicit weights and thresholds.

Data Protection, Ethical and Legal Considerations:Because the work will use publication and website scraping alongside surveys and interviews, bidders must address legal and ethical compliance (personal data processing, consent for interviews/surveys, terms of service for web sources, copyright for publications and scraped content, secure data handling and storage, anonymisation and confidentiality). GDPR and relevant local data protection regimes in African partner countries must be considered and described in the proposal.

How to Apply / Next Steps:Access the full tender dossier, eForms and submission portal page at the EU Funding & Tenders Portal (tender details link). Register on the Funding & Tenders Portal, download the tender documents, prepare required eForms and supporting documentation, and submit electronically before the registration deadline (2026-08-31) or the submission deadline as specified in the tender documents. Use the portal to submit questions and consult clarifications published by the contracting authority. For general information about the JRC see the JRC website JRC home and the tender page on the Funding & Tenders Portal Tender details ¹.

Summary: What is this opportunity about and how to explain it?

This is a competitive public procurement run by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre to commission an 8-month analytical and methodological service. The contractor will design an Africa-sensitive taxonomy of research infrastructures, build and apply an AI-driven methodology to detect and classify research infrastructures and facilities within Regional Centres of Excellence in Africa, and perform qualitative validation and stakeholder engagement to refine and extend the AI outputs. In parallel, the contractor will develop a methodology to identify and prioritise impactful investment opportunities in research infrastructures hosted by RCoEs. The assignment combines AI and data science (web and publication scraping, machine learning classification), scientometrics/bibliometrics, qualitative social research (surveys, interviews, workshops), and investment analysis. Bidders should be legal entities eligible to contract with the European Commission, should follow the Funding & Tenders Portal eSubmission process, and must consult the full tender dossier for detailed award and selection criteria, contractual terms, budget/price schedule and deliverables. Strong multidisciplinary consortia with regional African partners and demonstrated experience in AI-for-research-infrastructure, research policy analysis, and ethical data handling are likely to be most competitive.

Footnotes

1. 1Tender page and full procurement dossier are published on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal: ec.europa.eu

This opportunity is a tender for expert services focused on Regional Centres of Excellence in Africa. The work described in the opportunity metadata is to develop an Africa-specific taxonomy of research infrastructures, build and validate an AI-based method to identify and classify research infrastructures and facilities, and identify opportunities for high-impact investment in those infrastructures.

The broader programme context is the Africa Regional Centres of Excellence Programme, which is based in Sub-Saharan Africa, runs for 96 months from 2022 to 2030, and has a total budget and EU contribution of €80 million.[1]

Contract profile and likely procurement format

The available evidence points to a procurement assignment rather than a grant. A related European Commission notice for technical support to Regional Centres of Excellence in Sub-Saharan Africa described the contract as a services contract, used a restricted procedure, and showed an estimated value of €3 million.[2] This is not proof of the value of the current tender, but it is a strong benchmark for the scale and nature of similar assignments.

The exact submission deadline, duration of the current contract, award criteria, and any lot structure were not visible in the supplied search results, so they should be confirmed directly in the tender file on the EU Funding and Tenders Portal.[3][6]

Who is likely to apply

Based on the subject matter, the most likely bidders are consulting firms, research institutes, universities, data analytics specialists, and consortia that can combine policy analysis, AI and web scraping, bibliometrics, survey design, interviews, workshop facilitation, and regional development expertise. Because this is a tender, applicants will usually need to prove operational capacity, relevant past performance, and the ability to deliver the full scope within the contracting authority's timetable.

Core technical tasks in the assignment

1. 1Develop a taxonomy of research infrastructures that reflects African specificities and the realities of Regional Centres of Excellence.
2. 2Design and apply an AI-based methodology to identify and classify research infrastructures and facilities within RCoEs.
3. 3Collect qualitative evidence through surveys, interviews, and workshops to test and improve the AI-driven classification tool.
4. 4Use quantitative and digital methods such as publication scraping and website scraping to expand and validate the analysis.
5. 5Develop a methodology to identify where investments in research infrastructures would have the greatest practical and strategic impact.

Information applicants will want to check in the official notice

1. 1The final submission deadline and the electronic submission route.
2. 2The exact contract duration and start date.
3. 3Whether the procurement is open to single bidders or consortia only.
4. 4Any minimum turnover, reference project, or staffing requirements.
5. 5The evaluation criteria and the relative weight of quality versus price.
6. 6Whether the assignment includes fieldwork in multiple Sub-Saharan African countries.