ARTES Competitiveness & Growth – the Outline and Full Proposal

The most important aspects of the ARTES C&G Call for Proposals are described below.

The Outline Proposal

The Outline Proposal is always the first step to taking part in the ARTES C&G Programme.

The industrial partner downloads a template for the Outline Proposal, and describes the business plan and product development plan. This will indicate the Development Phase(s) that will be covered in the Full Proposal. The term “product” includes any end-to-end system, hardware, software, (sub)system or service ready for commercial exploitation in the world satcom market.

As part of the templates, a dedicated Financial Forecast Workbook in Excel format is also provided to streamline the business case analysis.

The above-mentioned templates for the Outline Proposal and Financial Forecast Workbook can be downloaded from the ARTES site.

Product development can be undertaken in any of the four ARTES C&G Development Phases: Definition, Technology, Product, and Demonstration. These Phases are illustrated in more detail below:

The four ARTES C&G Development Phases

The industrial partner can propose an activity starting with any of these four Development Phases and more than one Development Phase may be proposed. The Development Phases may be executed in sequence, or overlapping in time – as required to achieve the commercial and/or technical objectives.

At this point in the procurement process (i.e. prior to submitting the Outline Proposal), we recommend consulting the National Delegate(s) concerned.

The Full Proposal

The Full Proposal has a modular document structure. It is split into seven Proposal Parts. Each Part contains the content requirements and the associated template. Use of the templates is mandatory.

Certain Parts, such as Parts 5 and 6, must be submitted individually for each Development Phase. For other Parts, this is not required as one version will cover all Development Phases.

The diagram below shows the modular Full Proposal structure:

 

In case a contract for any of the Development Phases is already in place, the industrial partner may propose subsequent Development Phase(s) via a Contract Change Notice (CCN), provided this is financially supported by the industrial partner’s National Delegation. The industrial partner may also choose to undertake certain Development Phases outside of ARTES C&G.

Benefits

The ARTES C&G Call for Proposals offers the following benefits.

Efficient proposal preparation

The Full Proposal, organised in Parts, each with their respective requirements and mandatory templates, helps to ensure overall clarity and completeness, making it easier to submit successful proposals. The requirements structure is similar to industrial RFPs/RFQs. During the preparation of the Full Proposal, it can be distributed, part by part, to the relevant experts within industry, enabling a smooth and well-coordinated preparation of the proposal.

The requirements and templates provide guidance about what is typically undertaken within each Development Phase. In particular, newcomers or SMEs should find it easy to plan a successful product development.

Efficient evaluation by ESA

Feedback to Outline Proposals is provided within ten working days.

Fast time to contract: ARTES C&G supports Industry’s need of a fast time to market for the products developed in the Programme by guaranteeing a fast time from proposal to contract. Full Proposals announced and submitted for a certain gate  will receive feedback within 5 weeks. Given that the structure of the Full Proposals is closely aligned with ESA evaluation criteria, the evaluation process is quick and efficient.

Simplified initiation of subsequent Development Phase(s)

The ARTES C&G Call for Proposals offers flexibility: it is possible for ARTES C&G activities in progress to transition seamlessly across all possible Development Phases. All that is required is an update of certain Proposal Parts submitted to ESA via a CCN. The entire product development process may be performed within one contract, using the same contract number throughout.

The Call for Proposals on EMITS

The ARTES 4.0 Call for Proposals is available online on EMITS, Invitation to Tender number AO10285.

. (Documents can only be downloaded by registered users. To create an account, register here).

Three documents are provided:

  • Letter of invitation
  • Draft Contract and
  • Special Conditions of Tender (SCT)

The Special Conditions of Tender contain a hyperlink to a zip file which enables to retrieve the complete Full Proposal documentation tree and the corresponding set of templates described above. In case of difficulties downloading the zip file, please contact us using the email address below.

Feedback

The ESA TIA directorate strives to continue to improve the Call for Proposals, e.g. reducing time to contract, thereby helping industry to achieve commercial success by developing world-class products. We welcome feedback and we will use comments received to improve the Call in the future.

Please send any feedback to: artes-C&G@esa.int

Published 08 September 2016
Last updated at 04 June 2020 - 10:15