Call for tenders: Consulting on the design, implementation and delivery of SIMPLE’s virtual worlds

About the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD): IRD is a French public scientific and technological institution under the dual supervision of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research and the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs. For 75 years, its research, expertise, and training activities have aimed to contribute to the economic, social and cultural development of developing countries.
About project “SIMPLE”: IRD in Vietnam (http://vietnam.ird.fr/), through its International Joint Laboratory ACROSS (http://across-lab.org), has recently been awarded a funding by the EuropeAid “Green Partnership with ASEAN” program to develop, with partner schools in the Lower Mekong countries (Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam), a set of “sustainability metaverses”, i.e., educational solutions based on the integration of immersive virtual reality (VR) environments with serious games and scientific simulations. This project, called SIMPLE, will also be providing an integrated learning environment, called the Mobile Metaverse Learning Lab (M2L2), that can be deployed quickly and provide a complete virtual reality playground for classrooms, even in remote locations with limited Internet bandwidth. The virtual universes developed in SIMPLE will be based on calibrated scientific models validated in well-documented case studies, ensuring the realism of the development scenarios that participants will explore and allowing them to collaborate virtually in real time to explore solutions to sustainability issues.

The objective of the hired team will be to support and assist the project team in the development of high-quality and aesthetically pleasing virtual environments, guiding choices in terms of graphic, scenario and interaction design, pedagogical approaches, as well as equipment. The suggested intervention will have to fit in well with the research on modeling and simulation tools developed by the project team.

The hired team will especially be in charge of developing three main orientations:
● Educational/pedagogical advice: guide the initial groundwork to make key pedagogical decisions and ensure that the project has an impact on youth, particularly in terms of the learning process. This involves deciding on the scope of the virtual universes, the progression over time and the relevant indicators.
● Software technical advice: advice and support on the choice of the development environment, the toolchain to use and/or to design and/or to deploy to facilitate the development of SIMPLE universes.
● Hardware technical advice: advice and support on the design of the M2L2 (Mobile Metaverse Learning Lab) units, the equipment to buy in terms of computers, screens, headsets for VR.

● Support the project team in defining the content and main activities of the kick-off meeting of the project.
● Support the project team in hiring local staff, including the pedagogical officer, by defining the appropriate profiles and participating in the interviews.
● Support the project team in developing a pedagogical strategy:
○ Discuss with the stakeholders (partners, teachers, students,…) to precisely understand the target audience.
○ Ensure the playful and educational appeal of the virtual universes to youth and ensure that they remain consistent with the modeling approaches developed by the project team, particularly in the context of the GAMA platform.
○ Help translate the project’s awareness-raising objectives into elements such as scenarios, concept art, gameplay, storyboard or game design.
○ Support the pedagogical officer and the project team to design the content of the “train the trainers” sessions, and write a training report.
● Support the project team in optimizing the budgets of realization, installation and maintenance of the deliverables of the project in terms of virtual universes.
○ Actively seek and test new equipment, and provide advice on the needed equipment for implementing the project.
● Support NSTDA and CTU’s developers in designing the virtual universes and ensure the follow-up with them.

● Small multidisciplinary team, with senior partners and expertise in pedagogy, computer graphics, 3D graphics, and embedded systems.
● Experience with project implementation, team skills development, technical understanding to fit well with the simulation tools developed in SIMPLE.
● Strong pedagogical incline and experience working on projects with young people aged 12-24.

The evaluation criteria are related to the understanding of the requested mission, the detailed description of the technical and methodological approach and the budget proposal. The full proposal is available upon request from the project team (see email address for applications).
Only offers that meet the above requirements will be considered for evaluation. The award will be made to the most technically, creatively and financially advantageous offer.
Applications must include detailed CVs of the team members, a detailed methodological proposal, a provisional timetable, a portfolio containing examples of communication and awareness raising campaigns produced by the bidder and a price offer (flat fee).

The estimated period of implementation starts at the beginning of May and continues for the 4 years of the project. After a high density of intervention at the start of the project to support defining the overall development strategy, the hired team will act punctually, on specific and limited actions, more as a reassurance to the project team.
The project team is located in Southeast Asia (UTC+7). The hired team does not need to be located in the ASEAN, but will need to be able to join online meetings held in that time zone, as well as support their trip to some key meetings (kick-off, mid-term, and end of project).

The implementation schedule should be structured using the following template:
– … days discussing with the different teams, familiarization with the project “SIMPLE”.
– … days discussing with Can Tho University (CTU) and the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), the other partners of the project.
– … days for the elaboration of the pedagogical strategy.
– … days for the elaboration of the training content.
– … days to take into account observations and comments.
– … days for the elaboration of the final training report with lessons learnt.
– … days to take into account comments from IRD, CTU, and NSTDA

The maximum budget envelope for this contract is 150.000€.

Applications should be sent in English, by email to alexis.drogoul@ird.fr, as a PDF file entitled “SIMPLE_CFT_2023_2_ApplicantName.pdf”. Supporting materials (videos, portfolio, etc.) will be provided as links in the document.

The deadline for applications is May 1, 2023; selected proposals will be invited for an interview the first week of May, with the final answer provided mid-May.