Evaluation of the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts HQ Retention

Descriptions

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) is commissioning an independent evaluation of the construction of a new net-zero headquarters for the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) at the University of Reading's Whiteknights Campus. The maximum budget for the evaluation is £630,000 including VAT. We are seeking to commission an experienced external supplier with relevant expertise.

We are establishing a contract for a single supplier, although a supplier may choose to subcontract parts of its delivery. If you choose to bid with subcontractors to deliver the requirement, you must be clear in your bid about who they are and to what extent they will provide the service (see section 6 for more information on subcontractors).

This specification proposes a high-level approach to delivering this evaluation, but we encourage bidders to suggest adaptations if they feel they would better deliver the requirements. These should be fully explained and justified.

We anticipate that the contract will cover a period from December 2025 until the end of 2032 and will be structured into three main phases:

- Baseline phase
- Interim phase

- Full evaluation phase

The contract is being offered under the Crown Commercial Services Research & Insights Dynamic Purchasing System (RM6126) and the terms associated with that DPS will apply. On 11July 2025 the Department applied a filter of categories on the Research & Insights Dynamic Purchasing System's marketplace was undertaken.

The categories selected were economics (appraisal and behavioural economics), higher education, workplace training/skills development, employment, decarbonisation, emissions and net zero, financial analysis (incl. cost-benefit analysis, return on investment analysis), impact assessment, impact evaluation, theory-based impact evaluation (incl. theories of change (ToC) and logic modelling), value-for-money evaluation, and stakeholder research.