Getting shortlisted: EOIs and requests to participate

How the first stage works

Under PRAG, the European Commission’s procurement rules for EU external action, service contracts of €300,000 or more can be awarded through a restricted procedure; some contracts under €1 million go through framework contracts instead. In a restricted procedure, any eligible firm or consortium may submit a request to participate, but only candidates that meet the selection criteria may be invited to tender, and only they receive the tender dossier. For services, the shortlist holds between 4 and 8 candidates.

Other funders run a similar first stage under other names; the World Bank, for example, asks consulting firms for expressions of interest. The details differ, so read the notice in front of you. The rules quoted here come from PRAG 2021.1 and its standard notice and form.

Two things make this stage different from the tender:

• You are judged on the firm, not a proposal. Turnover, staff and past contracts count; there is no methodology yet, and selection criteria cannot be applied to the experts whose CVs will be scored later.
• The criteria are pass or fail. Each one must allow a clear yes or no. That makes the first stage very winnable, and very easy to lose on a technicality.

The form also commits you: its statement says that if you are shortlisted, you fully intend to submit a tender. Apply only for contracts you would actually bid on, which is the first gate in our bid/no-bid guide.

The timeline from notice to invitation

A prior information notice is your early warning. It states the subject, content and value of the planned contract, and you are not expected to apply yet. Use the time to line up partners and gather the evidence for your references, because 30 days is not long once the notice is out.

Selection criteria: what they measure

The additional information about the contract notice lists the selection criteria in three groups. The standard template explains the purpose of each and gives example criteria:

• Economic and financial capacity: that you would not depend economically on this contract and can handle it financially. Examples are an average annual turnover over the last three closed years at least equal to the annualised maximum budget, and a current ratio of at least 1. The minimum turnover asked for may not exceed twice the estimated annual contract value, except in justified cases.
• Professional capacity: that you have enough ongoing staff and expertise in the field, and are not a “body shop” that only finds experts to fit a project. Examples are a number of staff currently working in fields related to the contract, or a relevant professional certificate.
• Technical capacity: that you have done this kind of work before. The example is a number of contracts, each with a minimum budget, in the relevant field during the reference period, recommended to be the last three years.

PRAG also tells contracting authorities what to avoid: disproportionate turnover, staff or project requirements, vague words such as “sufficient” or “relevant”, experience limited to EU projects, and experience in the partner country without specific justification. If a criterion is ambiguous, ask before the question deadline. The contracting authority will not give an opinion on your own request, but it can clarify the notice.

For a consortium, criteria apply to the consortium as a whole unless the notice says otherwise. Our guide to forming a JV covers how partners, subcontractors and parent companies count.

Filling in the request to participate form

Use the standard request to participate form and follow its format and instructions strictly. Anything sent in addition, such as brochures or covering letters, is not taken into account. The form asks for:

• Financial data: annual turnover, current assets and current liabilities for the last three years, with their average.
• Personnel: permanent and other staff, overall and in fields relevant to the contract, for the current year and the two before.
• Areas of specialisation: up to 10, ticked for each legal entity.
• Experience: at most 15 references for the whole request, each with the overall value, the proportion your entity carried out, the staff provided, the client, the origin of funding, dates, any consortium members and a description of the services.
• Declarations: a signed declaration from each legal entity, and a declaration on honour on exclusion and selection criteria from every member, capacity-providing entity and subcontractor.

All data must concern only the entities submitting the request, plus any entity whose capacity you rely on with its written undertaking. Under electronic submission, every consortium member needs its own Participant Identification Code (PIC) from the EU Participant Register, and the request goes in as a group submission. Register early; it is not a deadline-day task.

References decide most requests

Only the part of a project completed within the reference period counts, and it must be backed by a statement or certificate from the client, or proof of payment, giving its value. For a project done in a consortium, the evidence must show the share your entity completed. Experience from a contract terminated for breach cannot be used. Gather those documents when each project ends; the 30 days after a notice is the wrong time to chase a former client for a certificate.

More than eight qualify: how the tie-breakers work

If more than 8 eligible candidates meet the selection criteria, the committee re-examines them with additional comparative criteria published in the notice, applied in the order listed. The standard template’s example uses two: first the number of projects that meet the technical criterion, applied to every qualifying candidate; then, only for candidates tied for the last place, the cumulated value of those projects.

A worked example

Say 11 candidates meet every criterion, including a technical criterion of at least two contracts above a set budget in the field. Ranked by the number of qualifying projects:

Seven candidates have four or more qualifying projects and are in. Three, including yours, tie on three projects for the last place, so only now does value count: Candidate I’s €3.4 million beats your €2.9 million. Candidate K has the largest portfolio of all, €7.5 million, but only two qualifying projects, so the value criterion never reaches it.

The lesson is in the first criterion. One more qualifying reference would have given you four projects, a tie with Candidate G for the last two places, and a place on the list whatever its value. With 15 references allowed, list every project that meets the technical criterion before you add impressive ones that don’t.

Why requests to participate are rejected

The standard letter to candidates who were not shortlisted lists the reasons a request fails. Each one is avoidable:

One more rule ends candidacies outright: a firm may appear in only one request to participate for a contract, alone or in a consortium. If it appears in more, every request it is part of is excluded.

After the shortlist

Under electronic submission, candidates are told the outcome by email. Unsuccessful candidates receive a letter giving the reason and can ask for more information; the contracting authority may share anything that is not confidential, for example why a reference did not meet the technical criterion. Ask every time, and keep the answers with your references. The shortlist itself is published later, together with the award notice.

If you are shortlisted, the invitation to tender and the tender dossier follow. The tender must come from the same team that applied, and shortlisted candidates may not form alliances with or subcontract to each other for that contract. Now the expensive decision begins: our bid/no-bid guide covers the second gate, and the key expert CV guide covers the part of the tender that carries the most weight.

Sources

• European Commission, Contract procedures for European Union external action: a practical guide (PRAG). The current edition and its annexes.
• European Commission, PRAG 2021.1 (PDF), the edition checked for this guide. Sections 2.6.3 (restricted procedure), 2.6.11.1 to 2.6.11.3 (selection criteria), 3.3.1 (service contracts of €300,000 or more), 3.4.1 (publicity and deadlines), 3.4.2 (shortlists) and 3.4.6 (tender deadline).
• European Commission, PRAG 2021.1 annexes (ZIP). Additional information about the contract notice (A5f), request to participate form (B3), shortlist report (B5) and the letter to candidates not shortlisted (B7).