Research Intelligence Tools - “Proof of Concept” Pilot Project Based on Bibliometrics for Natural Resources Canada (NRCan)

ADVANCE CONTRACT AWARD NOTICE (ACAN)

1. Advance Contract Award Notice (ACAN)

An ACAN is a public notice indicating to the supplier community that a department or agency intends to award a contract for goods, services or construction to a pre-identified supplier, thereby allowing other suppliers to signal their interest in bidding, by submitting a statement of capabilities. If no supplier submits a statement of capabilities that meets the requirements set out in the ACAN, on or before the closing date stated in the ACAN, the contracting officer may then proceed with the award to the pre-identified supplier.

2. Definition of Requirements

NRCan intends to conduct a feasibility "proof of concept" pilot with Clarivate Analytics to assess if their web-based bibliometrics application called "Web of Science" & their analytical platform called “InCites” are potentially beneficial to NRCan's science and research community. Clarivate’s products are site-licenses access subscriptions that enable researchers and managers to browse and report on publication activity for peer-reviewed research. They also enable benchmarking with other organizations that have also published in peer review reputable journals.

NRCan is defining new approaches on how it manages its science. In order to do this, NRCan requires access to analytical tools to do customized searches, benchmarking and foresighting analysis from a reputable source of information in regards to the peer review scientific publications databases.

The objective of the work is to gather expert advice, experience the tools and visualize their potential use through a pilot based on NRCan needs, in particular for performance reporting, informing foresighting type analysis and addressing priority issues related to readily identify citation of peer-reviewed publications in other type of databases, such as Environmental Assessments.

Through this pilot, NRCan will obtain access to expertise, advice and tools including an example that identifies NRCan citations in up to 4 Environmental Assessment reports from Dec 21st - March 31st, 2017. Meetings with focus groups of NRCan experts and supplier experts, the associated example, and access to the tool will allow for an assessment of the potential value added.

3. Criteria for Assessment of the Statement of Capabilities

Any interested supplier must demonstrate by way of a statement of capabilities that it meets the following requirements:

1. Has authorized access to Web of Science Database source code for their licensed web-based applications.
2. Has authorization to work on Clarivate web-based applications.

And meets the following requirements:

• Has access to reputable citation index database that undergoes a curation process of each article, ensuring a more robust database that leads to reliable results.
• The associated analytical tool must be able to use the funding, author and institutional information contained in the database.
• Has acess to an on-line platform that can allow the search of NRCan peer-reviewed publications within reputable published research that can be benchmarked against other organisations.
• Provides an on-line analytical option to do dynamic analysis on published research, provide basic stats and analytics, specific to user defined groups while adjusting the citation index according to the areas of research.
• Enables the analysis of specific contribution of an individual to a particular area of science, or timeframe defined, as opposed to the entire body of work of the individual.
• Enables the analysis of different perspectives from database search results (by institution, by individual, user defined or area of research) without repeating searches or manipulating data outside the interface.
• Provides multiple graphic visualizations that can be easily adjusted for reporting, including the ability to select from a variety of metrics.
• Enables visual identification of highly relevant research articles (e.g. those on the top 1% or 10% of highly cited documents)
• Enable the export of results from the search into the analytical tool and into csv, xls type files)
• Enables the analysis to support identification of future trends in areas of research.
• Can export the information on the publications that cite a publication, or a group of publications resulting from a search.
• Provides an Application Programming Interface (API) to allow machine-to-machine connections to database search results.
• Able to develop an example to identify citation matching with publically available databases, such as Patents, EAs (Environmental Assessments), and policy documents.

4. Trade Agreements

Canadian Free Trade Agreement

Chile Free Trade Agreement

Columbia Free Trade Agreement

European Union Free Trade Agreement

Honduras Free Trade Agreement

Korea Free Trade Agreement

NAFTA - Canada/US Free Trade Agreement

NAFTA - Canada/Mexico Free Trade Agreement

Panama Free Trade Agreement

Peru Free Trade Agreement

Ukraine Free Trade Agreement

WTO-GPA Free Trade Agreement

5. Justification for the Pre-Identified Supplier

We intend to deal directly with the supplier mentioned in section 10 below as, it is the only known supplier that meets the mandatory criteria set out in section 3 above as well as provide the services described in Section 2.

Should Canada receive a statement of capabilities from a supplier that contains sufficient information to indicate that it meets the requirements set forth in this ACAN, a competitive process will be triggered with a technical and financial evaluation methodology of the bids proposed by the potential bidders

6. Exception to the Government Contracts Regulations

The following exception(s) to the Government Contracts Regulations is (are) invoked for this procurement under subsection: 6(d) – “only one person is capable of performing the work).

The identified provider,Clarivate Analytics, is the only one able to meet all of the criteria identified in paragraph 3 above.

7. Exclusions and/or Limited Tendering Reasons

Article 513 (1b) of the Canadian Free Trade Agreement

Article Kbis-09 (c) of the Canada-Chile Free Trade Agreement

Article 1409 1 (c) of the Canada-Columbia Free Trade Agreement

Article 1016 (e) of the North American Free Trade Agreement

Article 1409 1 (c) of the Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement

Article XV (d) of the World Trade Organization Free Trade Agreement

(and analogous exceptions in the other trade agreements)

8. Ownership of Intellectual Property

Ownership of any Foreground Intellectual Property arising out of the proposed contract will vest in the Contractor.

9. Contract Period

The contract period will be from contract award to March 31, 2018.

10. Estimated Cost

The estimated maximum value of the contract for the feasibility "proof of concept" pilot with Clarivate Analytics is $50,000 USD.

The estimated maximum value of the contract options is valued not to exceed $157,330.80 USD

The total maximum contract value is $207,330.80 USD

11. Name and Address of the Proposed Contractor

Stephen DiGiulio

Country Manager--Canada, Web of Science

Clarivate Analytics

Phone +1 215 823 5384

Mobile +1 215 341 5865

stephen.digiulio@Clarivate.com

Address:

1500 Spring Garden Street

Philadelphia

USA

12. Suppliers’ right to submit a statement of capabilities

Suppliers who consider themselves fully qualified and available to provide the services/goods described herein, may submit a Statement of Capabilities in writing, preferably by e-mail, to the contact person identified in this Notice on or before the closing date and time of this Notice. The Statement of Capabilities must clearly demonstrate how the supplier meets the advertised requirements.

13. Closing Date

The closing date for a submission of a Statement of Capabilities is January 23, 2018

14. Contract Authority

Gerald Baran

Senior Procurement Officer

Natural Resources Canada

Finance and Procurement Branch

506 West Burnside Road

Victoria, British Columbia, V8Z 1M5

Telephone: 250-298-2502

Email: gerald.baran@canada.ca