Maintenance and Enhancement of the STCW Information System (STCW-IS)

Item Description:

The European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) is planning to award the public contract referred to above. The procurement documents consist of this Invitation, the Tender Specifications with its appendix(es), and the draft contract. All documents are available in the attached ZIP File.

The procurement and future framework contract cover the maintenance and enhancement of the STCW-IS developed and operated by EMSA. More information can be found in the published procurement documents.

Background

The EMSA was established under Regulation (EC) No 1406/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council1 for the purpose of ensuring a high, uniform and effective level of maritime safety, as amended. Among its tasks, the Agency under Directive 2008/106/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (the Directive) , as amended, assists the Commission in the evaluation of the compliance of Member States and third countries national maritime education, training and certification systems with the requirements of the Directive and of the 1978 International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW), as amended. In addition, the Directive establishes a mechanism for gathering information on certificates and endorsements issued to seafarers by EU Member States (MS) with the objective of using it as primary source of data for statistical analysis purposes only and for use by EU Member States and the Commission in policy-making.

In support of the above-mentioned provisions, EMSA developed and implemented the STCW Information System (STCW-IS). The system includes a web-based platform providing STCW related information on maritime Administrations and maritime education and training (MET) institutions in the EU and a database on visits and inspections findings. Furthermore, the system is used for gathering information from the Member States on certificates and endorsements issued to seafarers and to conduct the relevant statistical analysis.

To feed the STCW-IS with such information, data is extracted from the EU and EFTA national seafarers’ registry systems and transferred to EMSA using a common software module that anonymises the information to make it compliant with the provisions of Article 25a, paragraph 3 of the Directive, on the protection of personal data, while maintaining its comparability. The availability of such data in the STCW-IS has resulted in EMSA producing a Seafarers’ Statistical Annual Review, which has been published annually since 2016 and made available at https://portal.emsa.europa.eu/web/stcw/documents. After five consecutive years producing the reports in an analogic format, an interactive web-based module where the statistics on the number of seafarers holding EU certificates and endorsements (STCW-IS data) can be tailored according to the users’ needs was also implemented.

The development of the STCW-IS was assigned to the first contractor in September 2009. The system became fully operational in August 2011. Since that date, on-going enhancements and maintenance to the system have been provided.

Objective

The framework contract will cover the maintenance and enhancement of the STCW-IS developed and operated by EMSA.

This procurement will result in the award of one Framework IT Contract (Framework Contract from now onwards) with one (1) contractor for the provision of maintenance and enhancement services for the STCWIS.

The conclusion of the Framework Contract involves no direct commitment and does not constitute an order per se. Instead, it lays down the overarching legal, financial, technical and administrative provisions governing the relationship between EMSA and the Contractor during its period of validity.

The services defined in the Tender Specifications will be implemented via requests for services after the Framework Contract is signed and in force, through specific contracts. The baseline for all specific contracts is to use Fixed Deliverable & Timing types of specific contracts, as per the template in Annex I of the Framework Contract or Time & Means (TM) types of specific contracts, as per the template in Annex II of the Framework Contract.

The draft Framework Contract specifies the basic conditions applicable to any assignment placed under its terms. The signing of a Framework Contract does not pose to EMSA any obligation to place specific contracts.

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