European Defence Agency has launched a tender to address key European defence technical and industrial dependences. This tender has been published in OJ on 21th August, 2010.

In the context of delivering the future military capabilities required by EU Member States, the aim of the contract (B-Brussels: 'addressing key European defence technical and industrial dependences (EDTIB)' 10-R&T-OP-33) is to:

• Map the current level of dependency across the EDTIB, identifying the consequences for key technologies, industrial processes and skills and a sustainable EDTIB able to satisfy future common security and defence policy (CSDP) requirements.
• Develop criteria to objectively decide what are the critical technologies and industrial capabilities required to deliver defence capabilities for which dependency on international suppliers should be avoided, recognising the need to achieve the optimum balance between technological independence, strategic cooperation with international partners and reliance on market forces.
• Make proposals on which critical areas should be monitored and a system which differentiates the different levels of risk.
• Benchmark international best practice in dealing with dependency issues (from both the commercial and defence fields) and provide proposals for best practice solutions (recognising affordability constraints).
• Undertake a case study looking specifically at key dependency concerns in the European aeronautics industry.

The tenderer will need to demonstrate how he would access and safeguard propriety industry data. The detailed functional and technical specifications are available off the European Defence Agency EDA website.

European Defence Agency has set up a maximum budget of 400 000 EUR Euros. Tenders can be submitted until 6th October 2010.