EDCH – Request for Proposals

1. Introduction

OPERAS is the Research Infrastructure supporting open scholarly communication in the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in the European Research Area. OPERAS serves as the host of the European Diamond Capacity Hub (EDCH), a programme that aims to strengthen the Diamond Open Access (OA) community in Europe by supporting institutional, national and disciplinary Capacity Centres as well as Diamond OA Publishers and Service Providers in their mission of performing Diamond OA scholarly publishing. 

The EDCH (https://edch.eu/) has been deployed as a federated infrastructure that integrates the following services and components, initially developed in the context of the EU-funded DIAMAS and CRAFT-OA projects:

  • Diamond Discovery Hub (DDH):  https://ddh.edch.eu/en
  • Diamond Open Access Standard (DOAS), and self-assessment tool: 
https://selfassessment.edch.eu

2. Scope of work

OPERAS is seeking an EU-based external Contractor to provide services for the upgrade, visual redesign, and functional enhancement of the EDCH main portal (https://edch.eu/), the EDCH Registry (https://registry.edch.eu/), and the EDCH Resources and Guidelines platform (https://resources.edch.eu/). The scope of work includes (a) a comprehensive review of the current configurations and technical architecture of the platforms; (b) planning, implementation, and delivery of all required technical tasks in accordance with the specifications in the attached Annex; (c) all necessary testing procedures to ensure the stability, security, and seamless operation of the platforms following the completion of the technical work. 

The installations are currently operating on Drupal v.10 and will migrate to Drupal v.11 before December 2026. Consequently, all outputs (custom developments, integrations, and configurations) must be fully compatible with Drupal v.10 while also ensuring compatibility with Drupal v.11.

All tasks will be carried out under the supervision of the EDCH Coordination Team. The Contractor shall participate in regular meetings with the EDCH representatives in order to approve the proposed plan, monitor implementation progress, validate outputs, identify potential deviations from the agreed timeline and technical specifications, and define mitigation measures where necessary.

Upon completion of the assignment, the Contractor shall provide detailed technical documentation and a final report describing the activities performed and outputs produced.

In addition, the Contractor shall deliver, and make openly available, all relevant technical documentation, source code, configuration files, and related materials through the EDCH GitHub repository (https://github.com/EUDCH/registry-drupal-modules), or any other designated repository with relevant scope.

3. Proposal Submission

Candidates are invited to submit proposals demonstrating their capacity to undertake the required tasks and deliver the requested outputs within the specified timeframe. Proposals should include the following:

  • Description of the work: A description of the procedures for deploying the implemented upgrades into production; A detailed timeline for carrying out the work, compatible with the project requirements (see Annex) and implementation timeline.
  • Description of outputs: descriptions of the proposed outputs (online workflows, pieces of code and/or plugins, templates and forms, visual components and UI elements, and any other relevant output resulting from web development and integration tasks).
  • Financial proposal: a fixed-price financial proposal in Euros (€), including all taxes and charges. The proposal should provide:
    • An estimate of the required effort (including the time and effort allocated to meetings with the EDCH coordination teams and the preparation of documentation required for the final report), and associated costs 
    • Separate quotations for web design tasks and technical implementations (see Annex)
    • Separate indication of VAT
  • Relevant Experience and References: a description of relevant experience, including similar projects and references demonstrating the applicant’s expertise. Applicants may also include any additional supporting documentation deemed relevant.

Please send proposals and any accompanying documentation to: edch-rfp-202606@operas-eu.org. 

Please send any inquiries regarding requirements, anticipated tasks, or requests for clarification to contact@edch.eu

Proposals must be submitted in English.

4. Evaluation

Proposals are evaluated on a scale of 100 points, combining technical quality (70 points maximum) and the financial proposal (30 points maximum).

The technical-quality score is calculated in alignment with the below weighted criteria (totaling 70 points):

  • Drupal 10/11 full-stack development – 21 points: Demonstrated expertise in Drupal 10/11 full-stack development, combining custom backend module development with advanced frontend implementation of reactive, real-time features such as dynamic filter counters and seamless integration with Drupal Views configuration.
  • UI/UX and visual design – 14 points: Demonstrated expertise in UI/UX and visual design for the web, including the design and delivery of reusable design-token / design-system artefacts (colour, typography, components), consistent application of a defined brand palette across multiple platforms, responsive layouts across mobile, tablet and desktop, and the design of clear, role-based user-journey entry points for diverse stakeholders. A portfolio of comparable web design/redesign work should be provided.
  • Accessibility – 14 points: Proven expertise in accessibility standards (e.g. WCAG compliance) and experience using certified testing methodologies and recognised tools.
  • Implementation plan – 14 points: Detailed implementation plan including development phases, testing strategy and windows, deployment approach, and key milestones.
  • Track record – 7 points: Track record of successful Drupal-based projects and implementations of comparable scope and complexity.

The financial proposal is calculated as 30 × (lowest compliant quote ÷ proposal quote): the lowest compliant quote receives 30 points, and higher quotes receive proportionally lower scores.

The total score is the sum of the technical-quality score (maximum 70 points) and the financial score (maximum 30 points), on a scale of 100.

The contract is awarded to the proposal with the highest total score, representing the best value for money.

5. Time Schedule

Deadline for submission of proposals: 6 July 2026, at 08:00 CEST.

Review of proposals and interviews with selected candidate Contractors: 6–31 July 2026

Communication of results: by 14 August at the latest

Commencement and duration of the agreement: The expected start date is September 1st, 2026. The implementation timeline will be agreed with the Contractor and shall not, under any circumstances, extend beyond October 2027. 

OPERAS reserves the right to amend the indicative time schedule. The dates specified in the above time schedule, or in any amended time schedule, shall be regarded as binding deadlines.

6. Budget

The total available budget for the procurement is estimated to be in the range of €45,000 — excluding VAT and any other taxes, fees, or charges.

The estimated budget is allocated for the implementation of all tasks described in the Annex.

7. References

The listed sources provide documentation on the scope, technical development, structure, and content of the EDCH Registry and main portal:

Agnoloni, T., Alevizos, I., Garbuglia, F., Katsaloulis, I., Kuchma, I., de Pablo Llorente, V., Paulhac, M., Ševkušić, M., & Souyioultzoglou, I. (2025). Deliverable D4.5 IPSPs Registry (1.0). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15433338 


Arasteh-Roodsary, S. L., Grenier, B., Mounier, P., Paulhac, M., Rooryck, J., & Souyioultzoglou, I. (2025). Deliverable D4.1 Design of the future OA Publishing Capacity Centre (1.0). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15433072

Annex

A detailed task breakdown elaborating the requirements in this Annex will be confirmed with the selected Contractor, in alignment with the implementation elements and procedures designated in the submitted proposal.

1.    Upgrade of Administrative Workflows

Platform: EDCH Registry

Scope: Develop a comprehensive revision-tracking system for organisation profiles, including a “revert changes” capability. Administrators must also receive notifications whenever an organisation profile is updated.

Requirements

  • Every saved modification to an organisation profile generates a revision record, including (a) the verified user’s identity; (b) the timestamp of the change; (c) an indication of the modified profile elements.
  • Revision records must be accessible through the administration interface.
  • Administrators must be able to revert an organisation profile to any previous revision. Each revert action generates a new revision record.
  • Administrators receive an automated email notification for every profile update. The email includes (a) the fields that were changed, and (b) a link to the profile in the administration interface.
  • Existing profile save and edit workflows must continue to function without regression.

2.    Enhancement of Organisation Profiles

Platform: EDCH Registry

Scope: Enhance the organisation registration form and public profile to support a richer organisational identity. Public profiles must display hierarchical institutional relationships (parent/child organisations) and showcase the organisation’s journals hosted on the DDH platform.

Requirements

  • Organisations are able to upload PNG or JPG logos within predefined dimension constraints. Uploaded logos are displayed on the public profile.
  • Support multiple URL entries (registration form), and display all URLs as active hyperlinks (public profile).
  • Addition of fields and controlled values (e.g. National Capacity Centre) to the registration form.
  • For every organisation marked as a “publisher” in the Registry, the system queries the Diamond Discovery Hub. Matching journals must be displayed on the organisation’s public profile in the Registry (including journal title and an active link to the journal). 
  • Accordingly, a badge indicating that an organisation is serving as a Trusted Source for the Diamond Discovery Hub must be displayed on the organisation’s public profile page.
  • Hierarchical institutional relationships defined in the registration form must be correctly displayed on the corresponding public profiles, including both parent and child organisations.
  • A “Last updated” timestamp must be displayed on every public organisation profile.

3.   Improved Search functionalities and Country Pages

Platform: EDCH Registry

Scope: Enhancement of organisation discovery and country-level representation through dynamic filter analytics and country pages

Requirements

  • Real-time counts displayed (ideally in the ‘Search’ dropdown menus). Numbers update on filter combination without full page reload.
  • Manually-entered values (via the “other” text field in the registration form) are included in the search dropdown menus.
  • Country pages per country with at least one registered organisation, displaying the country’s NCC (if registered), and/or registered organisations.
  • Registry main page displays live counters for total organisations and total countries

4.   UI/UX Redesign

Platforms: EDCH Registry, EDCH main portal, EDCH resources and guidelines

Scope: Standardise the UI design across the platforms for consistent user experience. Introduce clear user-journey entry points for diverse stakeholders.

Requirements

  • A documented design-token system (colours, typography etc) delivered as a JSON or CSS-variables artefact applicable to the apps.
  • Content-type and component colours are aligned to the EDCH brand palette (provided) and applied consistently across the platforms; the design-token system above encodes the agreed palette.
  • Primary and secondary CTA styles are consistent across all pages of the installations
  • Filters on the main portal allow services to be narrowed by user role; the filter UI is discoverable.
  • Layout adapts to mobile, tablet, desktop without horizontal scroll or overlapping content.

5. Accessibility Standards

Platforms: EDCH Registry, EDCH main portal, EDCH Resources and Guidelines

Scope: Conduct a baseline accessibility audit of the applications and implement the necessary features and configurations to enhance accessibility compliance with current standards. 

Requirements

  • Baseline WCAG 2.1 AA audit for the installations
  • Colour contrast & typography: UI design maintains high contrast ratios and remains legible when zoomed up to 200%.
  • Screen reader optimisation: Implement proper ARIA labels, especially for dynamic elements (e.g. the real-time statistic counters on the Registry).
  • All interactive elements are fully navigable without a mouse.
EDCH-RfP-202606Download
EDCH – Request for Proposals
Tagged on:         

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *