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 Kenya?
GlobalGov holds 640 research and studies records from 169 distinct buying organisations in Kenya. The most frequent publishers are Kenya Medical Research Institute (33 records); Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization (30 records); Egerton University (26 records); Kenya Marine And Fisheries Research Institute (26 records); National Aids Control Council (24 records); Maseno University (21 records). Between them the 6 largest account for 25% of everything published, so buying here is spread across many separate authorities.
| Buying organisation | Records | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Kenya Medical Research Institute | 33 | 5.2% |
| Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization | 30 | 4.7% |
| Egerton University | 26 | 4.1% |
| Kenya Marine And Fisheries Research Institute | 26 | 4.1% |
| National Aids Control Council | 24 | 3.8% |
| Maseno University | 21 | 3.3% |
How long do bidders get to respond to research and studies tenders in Kenya?
Across the 275 Kenya research and studies notices that publish both a publication date and a closing date, the median response window is 13 days. A quarter of them allowed 8 days or fewer and a quarter stayed open for more than 15. 167 of them (61%) closed within a fortnight of being published, so on this market a bidder who reviews notices once a week can lose most of the response window before reading one.
How often are research and studies tenders published in Kenya?
Kenya published 19 notices in this category in the last twelve months. That is 74% fewer than the 74 published in the twelve months before that. Over the last three years there were 237, spread across 90 separate months of activity since 6 August 2018. March is historically the busiest month. No new notice has been published in this category since 26 March 2026, 189 days ago, so treat the figures above as a record of the market rather than as this week's pipeline.
How does Kenya compare with other research and studies markets?
Among the 25 countries where GlobalGov holds a comparable research and studies market, Kenya ranks 4th by number of records. The largest is France (1,079 records against 640 here). Within Kenya itself, research and studies is the 30th largest of the 83 procurement categories tracked here.
Where do the Kenya research and studies records on this page come from?
These 640 records are collected from 1 official source: the Kenya PPRA (640). 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 Kenya
No individual notice in this category currently has a public record page. The market figures above are computed over all 640 records GlobalGov holds for it.
Other procurement categories in Kenya
Research and Studies procurement in other markets
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