This is an invitation to tender for a study that shall provide OpenAIRE (Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe, www.openaire.eu) and the European Commission with a Sustainability Model and Business Plan for the infrastructure and organisation of OpenAIRE beyond the project funding.
The main objective of OpenAIRE and OpenAIREplus is to support the implementation of Open Access to research articles in Europe by building and enhancing existing European scientific information infrastruc-tures. This includes both the online digital infrastructure and the human network of people supporting the implementation.
The maximum budget for this Technical Study is EUR 73.500 (excluding VAT, including expenses).
The main goal of this study is to produce a business plan for the OpenAIRE infrastructure. The consortium assumes that in order to achieve this goal a set of specific objectives must be met:
1. Stakeholder definition, and given benefits: It is important to identify and prioritise the stakeholder groups and their needs. This study seeks ways to assign a monetary value to the benefits these stakeholders gain from OpenAIRE.
2. Accounting: how much does the current system setup, operation and maintenance cost? It is important that this study distinguishes between the operation of existing services, upgrades of the system, and the development of new services.
3. Cost benefit analysis: how do the system costs respond to the benefits of the identified stakeholders?
4. Revenue channels: identify the best and most viable model for OpenAIRE to spread the costs among beneficiaries (including service charges where appropriate) for its services. Who contributes, how much and when.