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Development of User Interface and Application Programming Interface for the Osemosys modelling framework

Home Based - May require travel

  • Organization: UNDP - United Nations Development Programme
  • Location: Home Based - May require travel
  • Grade: Consultancy - International Consultant - Internationally recruited Contractors Agreement
  • Occupational Groups:
    • Operations and Administrations
    • Development Cooperation and Sustainable Development Goals
    • Statistics
    • Information Technology and Computer Science
  • Closing Date: Closed

Background

The Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of UNDP’s Strategic Plan.  BPPS’s staff provides technical advice to Country Offices, advocates for UNDP corporate messages, represents UNDP at multi-stakeholder fora including public-private dialogues, government and civil society dialogues, South-South and Triangular cooperation initiatives, and engages in UN inter-agency coordination in specific thematic areas.  BPPS works closely with UNDP’s Crisis Response Unit (CRU) to support emergency and crisis response. BPPS ensures that issues of risk are fully integrated into UNDP’s development programmes. BPPS assists UNDP and partners to achieve higher quality development results through an integrated approach that links results-based management and performance monitoring with more effective and new ways of working.  BPPS supports UNDP and partners to be more innovative, knowledge and data driven including in its programme support efforts.

The Strategic Policy Unit (SPU) within BPPS has the primary objective to lead UNDP’s policy research agenda, policy incubation, provide forward-looking analysis, identify emerging development trends in multiple contexts (including crisis) and collaborate with academia and think tanks to advance UNDP’s contribution to global policy debates and the implementation of UNDP’s Strategic Plan.

In 2016, SPU initiated a collaboration with UN DESA, through UNDP country offices and UNCTs, to make promote the use of modelling tools for analysis to support formulation of policies for sustainable development. A suite of tool has been developed to cover different aspects and dimensions of the sustainable development challenge.

One of these tools is the Climate, Land, Energy and Water (CLEW) framework which is designed for integrated assessment of resource systems. CLEW was developed to provide analyst and policy makers with a means to simultaneously address matters pertaining to food, water and energy security, while both taking into account how the utilization of these resources is contributing to climate change as well as how changes in climate might impact the use of these resources. The focus is on the interlinked nature of these resource systems and how action in one area will have repercussions in other areas. It is thus a tool to look at policy cohesion in natural resource management. 

CLEW models are currently implemented using the Osemosys methodology (www.osemosys.org/). To facilitate the capacity development processes a Osemosys user interface specifically designed for the purposes of capacity development and tailored for use with the CLEW methodology is needed. The user interface needs to be able to allow for convenient management of large sets of data with complex interactions. It needs to be intuitive and accessible to analysts without expertise in programming or mathematics.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the guidance and supervision of UNDP and UNDESA staff the consultant will undertake the following:

Develop a User Interface (UI) for the Osemosys modelling framework with special emphasis on the needs for CLEW model development. The UI will incorporate:

a. Create a new model. The user should be able to:

  • Edit any entries made
  • Provide other essential data
  • Specify intra-year time resolution
  • Specify model horizon
  • name the model and provide a description

b. Create/edit/copy/delete commodities. The user should be able to:

  • Create a new member of the set "Commodity"
  • Provide a name and description of that commodity
  • Specify any group memberships
  • Specify applicable units of measurement from a list
  • Specify parameters for which to provide data from a list of all eligible parameters (i.e. parameters that have the commodity dimension)
  • Copy, edit or delete any commodity

c. Create/edit/copy/delete technologies. The user should be able to:

  • Create a new member of the set "Technologies"
  • Provide a name and description of that technology
  • Specify any group memberships
  • Specify units of measurement for capacity and activity from a list
  • Specify multiple input and output commodities from a list
  • Specify multiple emissions from a list
  • Specify parameters for which to provide data from a list of all eligible parameters (i.e. parameters that have the technology dimension)
  • Set RET tag
  • Specify modes of operation from a list
  • Copy, edit or delete any technology

d. Create/edit/copy/delete emissions. The user should be able to:

  • Create a new member of the set "emissions",
  • Provide a name and description of that emission
  • Specify any group membership
  • Specify units of measurement
  • Specify parameters for which to provide data from a list of all eligible parameters (i.e. parameters that have the emission dimension)
  • Copy, edit or delete any emission

e. Create/edit/copy/delete storages. The user should be able to:

  • Create a new member of the set "Storage",
  • Provide a name and description of that storage
  • Specify any group membership
  • Specify units of measurement
  • Specify parameters for which to provide data from a list of all
  • eligible parameters (i.e. parameters that have the storage dimension)

f. Create/edit/copy/delete groups. The user should be able to:

  • Create a new group (Commodities, Technologies, Emissions Storages)
  • Provide a name and description for that group
  • Add and remove members for that group
  • Copy or delete that group

g. Create/edit/delete units of measurement. The user should be able to:

  • Create a new unit of measurement
  • Edit or delete these units

h. View/Enter/edit parameter data. The user should be able to:

  • View data as table
  • Enter data directly or copy from other application (e.g. Excel)
  • Sort data by set (Column)
  • Filter data by set
  • For each parameter entry the units of measurement should be displayed

i. Create/edit/copy/delete a scenario. The user should be able to:

  • Create a new scenario
  • Provide a name and description for that scenario
  • Copy and delete scenarios
  • Enter data, create new technologies, commodities, storages and emissions in that scenario

j. Create/edit/copy/delete a case:

  • Create a new case
  • Select multiple scenarios to comprise that case (from a list)
  • Order scenarios in a case to set sequence/preference
  • Edit/copy and delete a case

k. Run a case. The user is able to:

  • Run the specified case and upload results

l. View results. The user should be able to:

  • View results as a table
  • Copy data directly to other applications (e.g. excel)
  • Sort data by set (Column)
  • Filter data by set
  • For each results variable the correct units of measurement should be displayed.

m. Export results. The user should be able to:

  • Export a table to excel at the press of a button

n. Model management. The user should be able to:

  • Open an existing model and work on it
  • Create a copy of a model
  • Delete a model
  • Export a full model
  • Import a full model

2. Develop an application programming interface that incorporates:

  • the necessary controllers, data structures and sub-routines to allow the execution of models specified in the UI with the GLPK linear programming solver.
  • the necessary controllers, data structures and sub-routines to allow the extraction of results from Osemosys models executed in the GLPK linear programming solver back to the UI for viewing by the user.

           Deliverables/ Outputs

Target Due Dates

Review and Approvals Required

  • Develop a User Interface (UI) for the Osemosys modelling framework

10 March  2017

UNDP-UNDESA modelling team

  • Develop an application programming interface (API)

10 March 2017

UNDP-UNDESA modelling team

Competencies

Professional and Innovation

  • Team Work - Work collaboratively with colleagues to achieve organizational goals; solicits input by genuinely valuing others’ ideas and expertise
  • Leadership – Responsible for own work, takes initiative, inclusive in decision-making, creates excitement for work through demonstrated excellence.

Technical/Functional:

  • Development and Operational Effectiveness.
  • Ability to contribute to strategic thinking, planning and monitoring;
  • Ability to integrate knowledge with broader strategic and policy objectives;
  • Innovative Approach to Problem-Solving
  • Ability to capture, develop, share and effectively use information and knowledge.

Required Skills and Experience

Academic qualifications:

  • A Master’s degree in computer science, systems analysis, or related field is required.

Experience:

  • Experience in working with applied energy systems analysis, such as OSeMOSYS is required;
  • Experience in working with GIS and other mapping tools is required;
  • Experience in working with large and complicated processes with multiple different actors; government, civil society and public sector is required.

Language:

  • Excellent skills in both written and verbal English is required

Application Procedure

The application package containing the following (to be uploaded as one file):

  • Online application with brief description of why the Offer considers her/himself the most suitable for the assignment; and
  • Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects and specifying the relevant assignment period (from/to), as well as the email and telephone contacts of at least three (3) professional references.
  • Indicate available start date

Note: The above documents need to be scanned in one file and uploaded to the online application as one document.

Shortlisted candidates (ONLY) will be requested to submit a Financial Proposal.

  • The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around the specific and measurable deliverables of the TOR. Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified in the TOR, and deliverables accepted and certified by the technical manager.
  • The financial proposal must be all-inclusive and take into account various expenses that will be incurred during the contract, including: the daily professional fee; cost of travel from the home base to the duty station and vice versa, where required; living allowances at the duty station; communications, utilities and consumables; life, health and any other insurance; risks and inconveniences related to work under hardship and hazardous conditions (e.g., personal security needs, etc.), ; and any other relevant expenses related to the performance of services under the contract.
  • This consultancy is a home-based assignment, therefore, there is no envisaged travel cost to join duty station/repatriation travel.
  • In the case of unforeseeable travel requested by UNDP, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between UNDP and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed. In general, UNDP should not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources.
  • If the Offeror is employed by an organization/company/institution, and he/she expects his/her employer to charge a management fee in the process of releasing him/her to UNDP under a Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA), the Offeror must indicate at this point, and ensure that all such costs are duly incorporated in the financial proposal submitted to UNDP.

The Financial Proposal is to be emailed as per the instruction in the separate email that will be sent to shortlisted candidates.

Evaluation process

Applicants are reviewed based on Required Skills and Experience stated above and based on the technical evaluation criteria outlined below.  Applicants will be evaluated based on cumulative scoring.  When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

  • Being responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
  • Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation where technical criteria weighs 70% and Financial criteria/ Proposal weighs 30%.

Technical evaluation (desk review) - Total 70% (700 points):

  • Criteria 1. Experience in user interface development. Weight = 25%; Maximum Points: 250;
  • Criteria 2. Experience in data management. Weight = 25%; Maximum Points: 250;
  • Criteria 3. Experience working with UN agencies. Weight = 20%; Maximum Points: 200

Candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% (490 points) of the maximum obtainable points for the technical criteria (700 points) shall be considered for the financial evaluation.

Financial evaluation - Total 30% (300 points)

The following formula will be used to evaluate financial proposal:

  • p = y (µ/z), where
  • p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated
  • y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal
  • µ = price of the lowest priced proposal
  • z = price of the proposal being evaluated

Contract Award

Candidate obtaining the highest combined scores of Technical and Financial evaluation will be considered technically qualified and will be offered to enter into a contract with UNDP.

Institutional arrangements

The consultant will work under the direct supervision, seek approval/acceptance of outputs from the Strategic Specialist, SPU, BPPS and Capacity Development and Outreach, UNDESA during the course of the assignment.

Payment modality

Payments will be made in two installments. The first payment (of 40%) will be made after completing the API, while the second payment (of 60%) will be made after the completion of the UI.

Annexes (click on the hyperlink to access the documents):

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.
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