With all the benefits that come with being listed in the OCRE Tender, institutions of research and education, and even hospitals, universities and schools, can't miss out on the opportunity to use cloud and digital Earth Observation (EO) services for research.

Deadline is fast approaching with expressions of interest accepted until 12 September 2019, 18:00 CEST and only those institutions listed can benefit from the resulting services and any adoption funds available. 

Here are the 19 reasons why you shouldn't miss signing up for the OCRE Tender:

1. Ease of mind for your services

OCRE offers ready-to-use service agreements with cloud and Earth Observation providers, which ensure good conditions of use around data privacy, contracting, billing, support, technical integration and have special pricing - but only if your institution is signed up as a user in the OCRE Tender!

2. Interoperability of services and compliance with open standards

OCRE-sourced commercial services will be required to be technically interoperable for multidisciplinary users and service providers, making sure that these services are compatible with the systems in your institution.

3. Streamlined transaction handling and consumption phase

Once services are selected through the Tender, and your organisation is a listed consumer, OCRE will ensure a streamlined service delivery process through the OCRE Business Desk and the Business Management Platform that will support user-institutions, and ensure they go through a streamlined financial, legal, and technical integration process.

4. Dedicated user support system 

As a user of the resulting services, you'll be able to count on dedicated support from the OCRE team as you consume the services. There will also be regular user-supplier interactions through workshops and webinars. 

5. Ensured compliance with European data protection and privacy rules

The OCRE Tender strictly takes into account European legislation on the treatment of data across borders and ensures compliance as one of the key requirements. Therefore, resulting services will be fully compliant for worry-free use by listed research institutions. 

6. Eligibility for adoption funds

The European Commission has provided OCRE with €9.5 million in adoption funds, to stimulate the usage of cloud and Earth Observation services, throughout the project’s 2019 - 2021 timeframe. At least €150,000 is also being distributed across individual institutions that signup to the tender. 

7. Your commitment is rewarded

€2.25 million will be distributed to buyer groups (cluster of institutions that expressed interest and have been grouped by OCRE based on shared needs) who collectively sign-up for the OCRE tender and commit to consuming cloud services via OCRE in 2020 as adoption funding to use for cloud resources.

8. Benefit from volume discounts

The more you commit to consume, the more discounts you stand to receive! This is even more significant considering that since the OCRE Tender will aggregate demand or group together the needs of institutions, your needs will be combined with the needs of other institutions, potentially affording you bigger discounts!

9. Your institution will have an opportunity to receive IaaS vouchers

OCRE will distribute a minimum amount of €150,000 across individual institutions, through vouchers. These vouchers can be used for running research related IaaS workloads at pre-selected suppliers from an already available set of agreements; those in the GÉANT IaaS framework.

10. Be eligible to use the most innovative and in-demand commercial services available

The tender will aggregate demands and requirements from institutions with similar needs to you and will result in a competition that will select the best offerings that commercial providers have to offer. OCRE's supplier list already includes some of the biggest and best-known names in their fields!

11. Aligning your institution with the current research best practices

As the sourced services will be in line with the best practices for research data management, taking into consideration cloud, security, interoperability, FAIR principles, and open standards, adopting the resulting services can help introduce new procedures and activities that will bring your organisation more in line with these best practices today. 

12. Saves you the trouble of running your own tender

Without the hassle of running your own tender, you can already benefit from consuming commercial services that you need as OCRE takes care of the entire tender process and ensures that your requirements, whether technical or legal, are all met. 

13. Benefit from the advantages provided only through commercial services

Services provided by commercial providers have already been market-tested by a large user base. This provides the highest chance for high quality services, backed by strong customer support.

14. Streamlined sign-on for the user for services

All services will be easily accessible through a single sign-on functionality, so any researcher under your institution can use their institutional credentials to access the services. 

15. You become an innovator

The bureaucratic barriers to the widespread use of commercial cloud and Earth Observation (EO) services in publicly-funded research means that your institution will be one of the few in your field that could actively have access to these types of innovative commercial services.

16. Take part in building the European Open Science Cloud

OCRE is a pioneering project that aims to revolutionise the way publicly-funded research procures commercial services to support its research activities and the outcomes of OCRE will feed into how the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) - the envisioned marketplace of digital research services and tools will be run in the future. By providing your requirements to the OCRE Tender and consuming resulting services, you help build the future EOSC!

17. As an enlisted user-institution you become an EOSC Early Adopter

With strong policy backing on a European and national level, EOSC is envisioned to play a key role in the way Europe does research. Even within the EOSC-sphere, the area of commercial services and procurement is an important priority area. Early Adopters of EOSC will get visibility and this positions them as a pioneer among their peers. 

18. Learn and experience the procurement model and methodology that will be used in the future

Through its experience running the tender, OCRE is tasked with producing a way or method for public research to easily procure commercial services that overcomes procurement barriers that are still being experienced today. 

19. Create new connections - OCRE, GÉANT, EOSC

The OCRE-GÉANT-EOSC network represents the most important players in European research including research-producing institutions, service providers, research infrastructures and e-infrastructures, funders and more. Being active in the OCRE community will allow you to get in touch with other institutions within the network through events, forums, webinars and other engagement activities.

Don't miss this opportunity; express interest now!

If you are a member of one of the NRENs that have already registered in the tender, then you simply have to contact them regarding the consumption of services identified in the OCRE framework. However, you will still need to complete the registration form if you are interested in applying for adoption funding for your research departments.  

Institutions that haven't expressed their interest in the OCRE Tender will have a lot more to lose as there are no foreseen future intake of user-institutions. Deadline is fast approaching with expressions of interest accepted until 12 September 2019, 18:00 CEST. This means once the OCRE Tender has been launched and concluded, only the institutions or buyer groups listed in the tender can receive all the benefits above.

Since inclusion in the OCRE tender does not constitute any type of formal commitment for institutions to purchase services as it is simply an expression of interest. (i.e. it is not mandatory to consume the tender outcomes), institutions stand to benefit more by being listed. Express interest for your institution now!