Commissioned studies, methodology scoring and the right to publish
A commissioned study is bought for a decision the buyer has to make, and the tender usually states the decision. That matters because the strongest bids answer the decision rather than the question as written: they say what the study can and cannot establish, what the sample will support, and where the evidence will remain thin. Evaluation in this category is weighted heavily toward methodology, and a proposal that claims certainty the method cannot deliver is scored down by any competent panel.
The practical constraints are access and ethics. Studies that involve interviews, survey respondents or administrative data need approvals before fieldwork begins, and the timetable for those approvals is frequently longer than the fieldwork itself. Data protection obligations govern how personal data is collected, stored, anonymised and destroyed, and the contract normally names the roles of each party in handling it. A bid whose programme starts fieldwork immediately after award has usually not accounted for this.
Ownership and publication are negotiated terms with real consequences. Public buyers commonly take ownership of the report and the underlying data, reserve the right to publish, and require the raw data and code in a reusable form so the analysis can be reproduced. Researchers often want the right to publish independently, and the compromise is usually a delay period rather than a veto. Bidders should also read the clause on findings the buyer dislikes: the credible contracts protect the researcher's conclusions explicitly, and the absence of that protection tells you something about the commission.
This section describes how this category is bought generally, across the public buyers that publish it. The figures elsewhere on this page are measured for this market alone.
Who buys research and studies in European Union?
GlobalGov holds 141 research and studies records from 6 distinct buying organisations in European Union. The most frequent publishers are 31045243 (81 records); 43108390 (38 records); 44181033 (11 records); 43353764 (7 records); 31061225 (3 records); 43252449 (1 record). Between them the 6 largest account for 100% of everything published, so buying here is concentrated in a few authorities.
| Buying organisation | Records | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 31045243 | 81 | 57% |
| 43108390 | 38 | 27% |
| 44181033 | 11 | 7.8% |
| 43353764 | 7 | 5.0% |
| 31061225 | 3 | 2.1% |
| 43252449 | 1 | 0.7% |
How often are research and studies tenders published in European Union?
European Union publishes about 12 notices a month in this category, 141 in the last twelve months. Over the last three years there were 141, spread across 1 separate months of activity since 1 May 2026. May is historically the busiest month. No new notice has been published in this category since 1 May 2026, 153 days ago, so treat the figures above as a record of the market rather than as this week's pipeline.
Where do the European Union research and studies records on this page come from?
These 141 records are collected from 1 official source: the EU Funding and Tenders Portal (141). GlobalGov is an independent aggregator and is not affiliated with any of them; each record links back to the notice on its issuing portal. The set is rebuilt nightly, and the counts on this page were taken on 2026-10-01.
Most recent Research and Studies tenders in European Union
No individual notice in this category currently has a public record page. The market figures above are computed over all 141 records GlobalGov holds for it.
Other procurement categories in European Union
Research and Studies procurement in other markets
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