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ARCHER Facility - Computational Science and Engineering.

Contract award notice

Services

Directive 2004/18/EC

Section I: Contracting authority

I.1)Name, addresses and contact point(s)

UK Shared Business Services Ltd
North Star House, North Star Avanue
Swindon
UNITED KINGDOM

I.2)Type of the contracting authority
Body governed by public law
I.3)Main activity
Other: Scientific Research
I.4)Contract award on behalf of other contracting authorities

The contracting authority is purchasing on behalf of other contracting authorities: yes

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
Polaris House
SN2 1ET Swindon

Section II: Object of the contract

II.1)Description
II.1.1)Title attributed to the contract
ARCHER Facility - Computational Science and Engineering.
II.1.2)Type of contract and location of works, place of delivery or of performance
Services
Service category No 7: Computer and related services

NUTS code UK

II.1.3)Information about a framework agreement or a dynamic purchasing system (DPS)
II.1.4)Short description of the contract or purchase(s)
In December 2011, the Minister for Science announced a new 158 m pounds sterling capital investment in e-infrastructure which included 43m
pounds sterling for ARCHER, the next national HPC facility for academic research. The Research Councils are committed to investing in ARCHER by providing the running costs for theservice.
The overall vision for ARCHER is to build on the existing investments in national HPC facilities so that the UK isa recognised leader on the international
scene for computational science and engineering. In order to achieve this, UK researchers must be able to carry out internationally competitive research across the remit of EPSRC and NERC.
The benefits of the UK being world leading in computational science and engineering will be realised through:
- The enhanced reputation of the UK in science and engineering as a whole,
- The increased ability of UK researchers to make valuable contributions to the solution of real, current research problems,
- Increased attractiveness of UK researchers as partners in high profile international collaborations and improved access to large HPC resources in other countries EPSRC, as managing agent for the nationalHPC facility on behalf of the other Research Councils, is looking to tender contracts for three
elements of theARCHER facility: the hardware, the service provision which manages academic access to the facility and thehelpdesk and the computational science and engineering (CSE) support which provides assistance to users ofthe facility to enable their codes to run as effectively as possible.
The ARCHER CSE support will be responsible for: integration with technology (in conjunction with the service provider), supporting the User community in developing and optimising the scientific codes that they will run onthe ARCHER service, resolving user code problems, and providing technical training for users.
II.1.5)Common procurement vocabulary (CPV)

72230000, 72253000, 72260000, 72212000, 72212980, 80510000

II.1.6)Information about Government Procurement Agreement (GPA)
The contract is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA): yes
II.2)Total final value of contract(s)
II.2.1)Total final value of contract(s)

Section IV: Procedure

IV.1)Type of procedure
IV.1.1)Type of procedure
Open
IV.2)Award criteria
IV.2.1)Award criteria
The most economically advantageous tender in terms of
1. Price. Weighting 35
2. Acceptance of Terms and Conditions. Weighting 5
3. Quality. Weighting 60
IV.2.2)Information about electronic auction
IV.3)Administrative information
IV.3.1)File reference number attributed by the contracting authority
IV.3.2)Previous publication(s) concerning the same contract

Section V: Award of contract

Contract No: PR120040 Lot title: ARCHER Facility - Computational Science and Engineering
V.1)Date of contract award decision:
28.10.2013
V.2)Information about offers
Number of offers received: 4
V.3)Name and address of economic operator in favour of whom the contract award decision has been taken
V.4)Information on value of contract
V.5)Information about subcontracting
The contract is likely to be sub-contracted: no

Section VI: Complementary information

VI.1)Information about European Union funds
The contract is related to a project and/or programme financed by European Union funds: no
VI.2)Additional information:
VI.3)Procedures for appeal
VI.3.1)Body responsible for appeal procedures
VI.3.2)Lodging of appeals
VI.3.3)Service from which information about the lodging of appeals may be obtained
VI.4)Date of dispatch of this notice:
6.12.2013