The Frontex Research and Development Unit (RDU) invites relevant candidates to express their interest in participating in a pool of experts in the field of Automated Border Control (ABC).
Interested experts are invited to submit their applications in response to this Call for Expressions of Interest (CEI). Candidates will be shortlisted for the pool on the basis of their professional and technical ability and their capacity to carry out the tasks described in the CEI.
The pool of experts will be valid for three years from the date of its publication (03/04/2013).
Whenever a contract is to be concluded in the domain foreseen in this CEI, Frontex, in response to its specific needs, will invite some or all of the candidates from the relevant shortlist, in order to ask for the provision of a detailed offer. Only pre-selected candidates (included in the pool of experts) will be invited to tender.
This CEI is exclusively addressed to natural persons (individual experts). It is open to citizens of one of the European Union Member States and Schengen Associated Countries as well as to Third Country Nationals.
Frontex encourages applications from research/academia and business experts as well as operational experts and practitioners according to the profiles defined in the CEI.
The total estimated value of all the services related to this CEI is approximately 120,000 EUR.
What type of services and expertise is Frontex looking for?
The specific tasks requested from the experts included in the pool will be defined on a case by case basis according to the needs of the Frontex RDU. It is foreseen that these will include the provision of the following services:
- Expert participation in meetings.
- Expert participation in studies.
- Expert participation in pilots.
- Contribution to and validation of written materials, including reports, studies and best practice guidelines.
- Development of an assessment methodology to evaluate the performance of ABC systems in the operational environment.
- Project development and execution.
In order to be shortlisted, experts must fulfill the selection criteria outlined in the CEI and possess proven knowledge and/or considerable professional experience in one or more of the disciplines below (please check the CEI for further details):
1. Forensic technologies — Biometry.
2. Electronic authentication.
3. Signal and Information Technologies.
4. Human sciences.
5. Information security technologies.
6. Communication equipment.
7. Computing technologies.
8. Information systems.
9. Vulnerability analysis.
10. Legal, economic and social sciences.
11. Operational research.
12. Project execution.
What to do in order to be included in the expert pool?
Applications in response to this CEI may be submitted at any time prior until 31 December 2015 (i.e. three months before the expiration of the pool). It is, however, recommended that applications be submitted as early as possible, as assignments can arise at any point in time.
Applicants should follow the below steps:
- Fill-in all the mandatory fields of the online application stored under http://btn.frontex.europa.eu/form/online-application-pool-experts-automated-border-control-abc
- Print out the filled in form
- Submit the online application by clicking the “SUBMIT” button
- Sign the printed hard copy and send it by post along with the Declaration of Honour to the following address:
Frontex
Rondo ONZ 1
00-124 Warsaw, Poland
for the attention of the Procurement Sector, with the following annotation:
Frontex/CEI/48/2013 – Pool of Experts on ABC
Incoming applications received in response to this CEI will be evaluated at least on a quarterly basis. The candidates satisfying the exclusion criteria and the required selection criteria will be pre-selected and put on the shortlist (pool of experts). Every candidate who submitted an application will be informed about inclusion or not inclusion to the pool.
The complete documentation related to this CEI can be downloaded from: http://www.frontex.europa.eu/about-frontex/procurement
Further information on Frontex activities in the area of ABC is available at the Frontex website: http://www.frontex.europa.eu/. Relevant publications can be downloaded at: http://www.frontex.europa.eu/publications/
Information enquiries about this CEI should be directed exclusively to the Frontex Procurement Sector at: procurement@frontex.europa.eu