Overview
Most research for the European Commission takes place under the Framework Programmes (FP5, FP6, etc). However, the Commission also lets a number of 'service contracts', largely to assist with policy-making, monitoring of policies and progress, best practice, etc. These are individual study contracts issued through open calls for tender. These projects typically have a duration of between 9 months and 3 years.
Since 2010 DG TREN of the European Commission is part of Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE) and Directorate-General for Energy (DG Ener).
The service contracts managed by DG TREN have various objectives relating to transport and energy policy. As these projects are individual studies and not part of a formal programme, there is no overall 'programme objective', other than to provide assistance to DG TREN.
Calls for tender are issued by DG TREN on average twice a year, through the Official Journal of the European Union (http://ted.publications.eu.int/official/). Around 50 to 100 such tenders are awarded each year. Many of the projects are short-term studies which feed into the work of DG TREN and relate to areas such as transport and energy policy (including TENs: Trans-European Networks), legislation, monitoring, assessment, forecasting and data collection.
Funding
Projects are normally fixed-budget contracts, fully funded by the European Commission.