Procurement

Opportunities for collaboration in the construction of the CTAO

Industry

Building the largest gamma-ray observatory on the planet requires great investment, people and resources. With facilities, activities and partners worldwide, it is clear that the CTAO will have a social and economic impact in countries around the world, both through direct procurement processes and indirectly through its In-Kind Contribution teams. In this sense, the CTAO is a multidimensional endeavor whose collaborations and activities comprises a multitude of different fields, from science institutions to industries, from day-to-day services to long-term investments.

Industry Procurement Opportunities

CTAO’s procurement initiative is to collaborate with industry in an open and unbiased way in order to achieve the best possible results for the execution of its mission.

 

In 2023, the CTAO’s two governing bodies, the Board of Governmental Representatives (BGR) and the CTAO gGmbH Council, gathered to agree on the significant forthcoming measures to advance the Observatory to its construction phase. During the meeting, both bodies unanimously certified their commitment to the progress of the CTAO, including a foreseen endorsement of up to approximately 30 million euro for 2024. This represents a significant increase in annual funding, which will enable the Observatory to not only move forward with substantial infrastructure development but also to double its workforce.The CTAO foresees a significant increase in the annual investment over the coming years, which includes in-kind contributions from member organisations. Such investment brings a range of opportunities of cooperation between scientific research and engineering and technology businesses, as well as other companies at a global level.

 

This page will promote the invitations to tender for the CTAO gGmbH and its In-Kind Contributors. Those interested in opportunities with the consortium design teams are encouraged to contact the team leaders found throughout the Construction Project page of this website.

  • Construction and related facilities: temporary construction camps; design, study, inspection, certification services for temporary camp installations; local CTAO offices; mechanical and electrical workshops and warehouses; outfitting of control rooms; computing rooms and other facilities, etc.
  • Detector and calibration instruments development: telescope foundation design and construction at both sites; construction of telescopes, including camera systems; Integration and testing of computing software; calibration system engineering, including hardware and software of all-sky cameras, ceilometers, LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) systems, aerosol monitoring systems and muon calibration systems; environmental monitoring instruments, including earthquake detection and monitoring systems, etc.
  • Electrical and mechanical systems: construction preparation for data network and electrical cables; low voltage distribution system construction; backup power systems, including dynamic UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) systems; power distribution system design, including electrical power distribution system at medium and low voltage level to all consumers, etc.
  • Information and Communication Technologies: document management systems; IT hardware and software; user networks at the sites and facilities; tools to support collaborative software development, such as repositories, wikis, issue tracking, as well as tools to enhance software quality, such as systems for continuous integration and software quality inspection tools; common software tools and libraries, used across all major software systems to ensure that computing products share an implementation and interface; software architecture support and applications to support all architecture activities in the computing work packages and over the full life-cycle of the project, etc.

Current CTAO gGmbH and In-Kind Contributors opportunities:

The purpose of this RFP is to solicit applications from qualified moving services companies in order to enter into a framework agreement (up to four years) for staff members’ international or national move from everywhere in the world to CTAO offices in Bologna (Italy), Zeuthen (Germany), and La Palma (Spain).

 

Over the next three years, the CTAO anticipates relocating approximately five employees per year. The CTAO intends to contract a professional moving company to facilitate and ensure that the moves are implemented efficiently and smoothly. Once selected, the Moving Company will be required to perform professional moving services by providing all labour, equipment, means of transportation and miscellaneous materials necessary to carry out the relocations. The services will include the preparation of inventory of items at the origin pre-move, and verification of items delivered to the destination (post-move).

 

The provider will provide all labor and referrals, including supervision, tools, equipment, licenses and incidentals required and/or implied for the complete and satisfactory performance of services at the required locations. For the complete list of the requested services and goods, please refer to the Request for Proposals.

 

All information is available in the Tender Dossier documents (Request for Proposals and Annex I, Annex II, Annex III, and Annex IV).

 

Request for clarification should be submitted in writing by email to ctao-procurement@cta-observatory.org

All responses, which are considered by CTAO to be of a substantive nature, will be sent anonymously to all applicants invited to submit a proposal. Any questions that are of a sensitive nature must be clearly identified as such on submission.

 

Deadline for request for clarifications: 10 April 2024 – 23:00 CET

Response to requests for clarifications by: 14 April 2024

Deadline for Submission of Proposals: 21 April 2024 – 23:00 CET