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The European Space Agency (ESA) hereby invites all companies from DUE participating countries (A, B, DK, FIN, F, D, I, NL, N, E, S, CH, UK, CDN) to submit a tender for this procurement. If companies are not yet registered as an ESA bidder, they are invited to obtain access to EMITS by completing a questionnaire, which can be found at the indicated URL, section Registration Request.

Companies are invited to submit bids for implementing and demonstrating innovative information services responding to the general objectives of the DUE programme. One or several targeted end-users who are expected to benefit substantially from the proposed services are to be identified and engaged in advance and shall participate actively in the project. Service and product requirements are to be specified in advance at the initiative of the bidding team. The application areas or service themes are not imposed by ESA, but innovative service ideas are mandatory. Subjects already covered by past or ongoing projects within the Data User Programme and Data User Element (DUP and DUE), EOMD, GSE, EU 5th and 6th Framework Programmes or National programmes will not be considered.

The main objective of each Innovator - User Partnership project is to demonstrate an innovative EO-based information service to one or several End-users. By a service is meant the production and delivery to the End-user(s) of one or several agreed products according to an agreed delivery procedure, possibly in a repeated way according to an agreed frequency during an agreed time period. In the Innovator - User Partnership project the service is first to be specified and, thereafter, developed and demonstrated through a service case, which means that the products composing the service shall be produced to cover a service area as agreed with the End-user(s) for one or several dates, or for a certain time period. The service case area should be a representative sub-area of the area that the End-user would like covered by an operational service. The service will be delivered to the End-user for his assessment and be validated by the Contractor and the End-user together. For the implementation of the products ESA data will be used in priority.

Each project will be carried out over a period of maximum 24 months, divided into three different phases:

• Specification;
• Development and service case;
• Validation, evaluation and evolution.

A maximum of ten projects will be funded, each with a maximum budget of 100K€.