The SHUTTLE European funded security project launches a call for tender with a budget of 7.4M€ including VAT
SHUTTLE stands for "Scientific High-throughput and Unified Toolkit for Trace analysis by forensic Laboratories in Europe" and is a research project supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme. The aim of the European funded SHUTTLE project is to develop a toolkit which facilitates the microtraces analysis collected in crime scenes. The development of this toolkit will be realised through a Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) action which means that the public authorities within the SHUTTLE project invite the commercial sector to make an offer for the required Research and Development (R&D) services in order to develop the toolkit. The official call for tender has been launched on 20th September 2019. Any interested solution supplier is invited to participate. The awarded suppliers will get a contract to produce a concept design, and eventually a prototype and a range of first products in the final step. Microscopic traces analysis limitations and the SHUTTLE concept Microscopic traces analysis currently relies on the "Microscopist eyes". It is time-consuming, selective and hardly objective due to the complexity of the process. The SHUTTLE toolkit will contain tools which will help solving these difficulties. Each of them, as well as their fluent interaction, will be required for optimal operation. • A microscopic grade tape or any other lifting system • An automated microscope that will form the eyes of the SHUTTLE toolkit to acquire high quality images of the recovered traces • Algorithms for image processing that will form the brain of the SHUTTLE toolkit to classify more accurately the identified traces • A database and search algorithms, that will form the memory of the SHUTTLE toolkit to facilitate future data analyses and comparisons The call for tender: Pre-Commercial Procurement of innovative products & services SHUTTLE is a user-driven project that seeks to catalyse innovation by allowing public authorities to invest cost effectively in innovation by sharing costs and lessons learnt. This PCP action is coordinated and jointly carried out by the SHUTTLE partners. The forensic laboratories organize and manage the procurement of R&D services through a three-phases competitive selection process involving risks/benefits sharing under market conditions. After the call for tender, the tenders will be reviewed by the consortium and at least four suppliers (Industry, Research Institutes etc.) will be awarded a contract (ca. January 2020) to produce a concept design. In the second phase, the providers of the most promising concept designs will be invited to build a prototype and, after an operational validation process in the third phase, possibly build a larger range of products. Where to find information on the SHUTTLE toolkit and call for tender? Between November 2018 and June 2019, an Open Market Consultation (OMC) was performed to raise awareness on the SHUTTLE procurement process regarding the development of a traces analysis toolkit and to collect valuable insights on industry expectations and skills which will be used to refine the tender specifications. During this OMC, an information day was held in Roissy on 30th-31st January 2019. The presentations and videos of the event are publicly available and can be found on the SHUTTLE public website. Based on the outcome of the OMC, the SHUTTLE consortium has defined the final requirements for the SHUTTLE toolkit that will be integrated in the tender documents. To learn more about the PCP tender please visit https://www.shuttle-pcp.eu/pre-commercial-procurement/ From the 20th of September, the tender documents will also be available here: https://www.shuttle-pcp.eu/shuttle-call-for-tenders/ To subscribe to the SHUTTLE Newsletter, please visit www.shuttle-pcp.eu/newsletter. Additional information can also be found in the Q&A section of the SHUTTLE Public Website.