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GRDC National Grower Network - Coordination and administration services for the Western Region

GRDC National Grower Network - Coordination and administration services for the Western Region

Reference number: PROC-9177149

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Release date:: Friday 15 November 2024
Closing time:: Friday 31 January 2025, at 05:00 PM ACT local time
Enquiry deadline:: Friday 24 January 2025, at 05:00 PM ACT local time

Summary

The delivery of efficient and impactful NGN forums by Grower Relations Managers (GRMs) has been enabled by the engagement of service providers to provide administrative and organisational support in each region. The service providers have access to a team of staff to undertake key activities at peak times, bring a broad network of growers, grower groups, advisers and agronomists. These service agreements are ending in 2025, and this investment proposal is designed to provide flexible engagements (GRDC NGN and industry events) with a coordinated and regionally nuanced approach over the next three years.

Offer period

Offers will remain open for acceptance by the GRDC for a period of 6 months after the Closing Time.

Document contact and enquiries

Attention: Laura Baugh
Grains Research and Development Corporation
Email: western@grdc.com.au

Make all requests for further information or clarification in relation to this procurement in writing (email) prior to 24 January 2025.

GRDC will publish all requests and responses to requests on the GRDC website under Questions and Answers at the bottom of this webpage.

Consortia response

GRDC will not accept Tenders from Consortia.

Lodgement of Tender

Submit your Tender response electronically through the Grains Investment Portal.

AusTender

TBC.

Description

Established in 2021, the GRDC National Grower Network (NGN) is one of GRDC’s primary stakeholder engagement mechanisms to capture and prioritise constraints or opportunities to enhance profitability of Australian grain growers. The NGN provides an important means for the GRDC to:

Support meaningful two-way engagement with grain growers and other industry stakeholders, including educating them about GRDC’s role and our portfolio of past and current investments,
Improve GRDC’s awareness and understanding of local issues and constraints and opportunities, their extent, and direct and indirect costs,
Informs the development of NGN validation, extension and communication investments that are locally relevant, promote adoption and have on-farm impact, including urgent responses to seasonal issues,
Helps identify the desired outcomes to shape GRDC research and development (R&D) investments, including variations to existing investments.

Outcome

Outputs

Output 1

By 30 June 2026 (recurring annually), organise, promote, coordinate and administrate a minimum of 12 and up to 16 NGN forums in the Western region.

For each forum the applicant is responsible for carrying out the following tasks in consultation with GRDC:

i. Event logistics (booking venues, catering, travel/accommodation for speakers, AV needs)

ii. Agenda creation, including booking guest speakers for the forum where necessary– with approval by GRDC

iii. Event promotion and must include GRDC channels, for example, website, event pages, electronic direct mail, social media, media releases) and by local promotion organised by the service provider

iv. Registration of attendees and collection of attendee details

v. Set up and pack up of event

vi. Taking minutes, collating information and drafting shortlists of prioritised issues to GRDC

vii. Event evaluation and collation of results.

Each forum will involve the following key components:

The NGN forum will provide an engagement opportunity to collect and prioritise opportunities and constraints of local importance to growers, advisers, industry and research representatives.
Formats might involve the existing GRDC NGN forum format, industry led forums in conjunction with existing activities (e.g. field days, workshops, grower group meetings) facilitated by the industry group in collaboration with GRDC, or online engagements.
At each NGN forum a research presentation, field walk, or similar extension activity may be conducted to facilitate peer to peer learning and group discussions to ground truth locally-relevant research outcomes.
Facilitation of the forum will be conducted by a GRDC Grower Relations Manager and will include a presentation on GRDC investments relevant to the local area of delivery.
Support will be provided to GRDC staff to capture the discussions and ensure effective time management is maintained to achieve the desired forum outcomes.

Proposed Budget

Proposed Contract & Term

GRDC will contract under the terms of the Services Contract.

The schedule(s) attached to the contract will detail the project details: the outcomes, outputs, milestones, budget, participating personnel and required intellectual property.

The template contract containing the proposed Terms and Conditions is available on the Application resources page on the GRDC website.

It is anticipated that any resultant contract in relation to this procurement will commence with a proposed term of 3 years.

Conditions for Participation

The following are mandatory conditions with which a Tenderer must comply to participate in this procurement process:

The Tenderer must be a single legal entity or recognised firm of partners
The Tenderer and any proposed subcontractor must be compliant with the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012, the Modern Slavery Act 2018 and any other applicable labour laws and standards in the jurisdiction in which they operate.
The Tenderer and any subcontractor must not have a judicial decision against it (not including decisions under appeal) relating to employee entitlements and who have not paid the claim.
The Tenderer and any subcontractor must not be named on the Consolidated List, being the list of persons and entities who are subject to targeted financial sanctions or travel bans under Australian sanction laws, as maintained by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Minimum Form and Content Requirements

The following are the mandatory content and format requirements that the Tenderer must complete and provide to participate in this procurement process:

Submit Tenders using the Grains Investment Portal.
Write Tenders in English and express any measurements in Australian legal units of measurement.
Budget details must be submitted on the ‘GRDC Budget Template’ provided in the Grains Investment Portal.

Evaluation Criteria

In the table below are the Evaluation Criteria that the Tender Evaluation Team will use to assess the value for money of all Tenders.

No	Type	Weighting
1	Technical – Qualitative evaluation criteria related to non-price factors such as methodology, project plan, track record, experience.
1a	Project Output Achievement Plan A clear and thorough plan to achieve the project outputs, specifying: a) method to be used (including anticipated statistical analysis capacity) b) proposed milestones c) proposed locations of field experiments (if required to deliver project outputs) d) budget (defining the funds sought in each year of the project and the potential investment from all parties) e) project structure and management arrangements	50%
1b	Project Outcome Delivery Plan A clear and thorough plan to deliver the project outcome, specifying: a) expected steps to deliver the outcome (pathway to market) b) identification of target users of the project outputs (who will the project directly deliver to e.g. grower, adviser, plant breeder, pathologist, the GRDC) c) specific information, products and/or services to be used to encourage attendance of target audience	20%
1c	Demonstrated Track Record Demonstrated track record of the project team, including: a) relevant achievements of the project leader in providing leadership, co-ordination, management, monitoring and evaluation and the timely delivery of high quality outputs b) relevant knowledge and experience of all key personnel (including proposed subcontractors) in the project area c) ability of the project team to collaborate with relevant research organisations and industry personnel to build on programs at the NGN events	30%
2	Price - The tendered budget.	N/A
3	Risk - Risks inherent in the application including the degree of compliance with the draft contract and any actual or perceived conflict of interest.	N/A