Request for Proposals: Lancet Countdown website redesign

The Lancet Countdown is looking to work with an external website design and development agency to redesign and launch a new-look website.
Proposals should be sent to info@lancetcountdown.org by 28 April 2023 at 18:00 BST (UK), answering the template questions below.

Introduction 

The Lancet Countdown: Tracking Progress on Health and Climate Change, is a multidisciplinary, international research collaboration producing scientific evidence of the health impacts of climate change, and the health opportunity of ambitious climate action.  

Its global and regional networks bring together a unique community of almost 300 academic experts from about 100 institutions, ranging from health professionals and epidemiologists, through to economists, engineers, social scientists, geographers and climate experts.  

Its global findings are published annually in the medical journal The Lancet ahead of the UN climate change negotiations, and track over 40 indicators encompassing five domains: i) health hazards, exposures and impacts of climate change; ii) adaptation, planning and resilience for health; iii) mitigation actions and health co-benefits; iv) economics and finance; v) public and political engagement.   

The Lancet Countdown works to ensure the evidence it generates is available and accessible to those that can enact change, and promote urgent climate action that maximises human health and wellbeing. Alongside its academic publications, it therefore also develops policy briefs, animations and infographics, that make the scientific information accessible to its key audiences. 

While climate change is a global crisis, its health impacts vary across different world regions, and solutions need to be tailored to local contexts. For this reason, the Lancet Countdown is founding a series of centres in key world regions, working to produce regionally-driven and locally-relevant indicators for tailored strategic outreach and engagement with partners and policymakers. 

Currently, the Lancet Countdown has representation across six Regional Centres across Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Small Island Developing States and South America. However, the programme is likely to continue to evolve, and its governance structure will require flexibility to adapt to this as well. Each of the Regional Centres is led by a Regional Director. 

Aims 

The Lancet Countdown is looking to work with an external website design and development agency to redesign and launch a new-look website. This will allow us to equip our target audience with a useful resource through which they can understand and utilise our data and expertise in future policy, research and innovation.  

This comes at an exciting time, with the role of Lancet Countdown Regional Centres also growing, and an increasing number of outputs reflecting a growing engagement with the collaboration.

Brief 

We would like an external agency or developer with expertise in both website design and development to lead this initiative. This should include: 

• Reviewing outputs from existing Lancet Countdown user research (including target audience personas and user needs database) to propose a low-fidelity website design wireframe; 
• Proposing the most appropriate technical architecture for the Lancet Countdown website; 

• Website design, development and user testing; 
• Training Lancet Countdown team members to use the website CMS; 
• Supporting with launch of the website, including fixing bugs 

Timeline 

We would like to undertake the redevelopment process beginning in May, with user research having been conducted by the Lancet Countdown team in advance. The project will run throughout 2023 with an absolute deadline of March 2024, including user testing and bug fixes.

Supplier requirements 

The chosen agency will ideally have: 

• A user-centred approach to website design; 
• Experience integrating data visualisation into a website, including platforms like Flourish and Tableau; 
• Experience with public health and/or climate sector, or experience designing websites for intergovernmental or international research programmes; 

• A collaborative and communicative style; 
• Ability to cater a web-design for low internet resource settings and multiple languages; 
• Capacity to continue supporting with website maintenance following the re-launch (optional) 

Anticipated budget 

We have a budget of approximately £60,000 to support this initiative. All engagement is envisioned as being virtual and no travel is anticipated. 

Proposal requirements

Please send a proposal, answering the template questions below, to info@lancetcountdown.org by 28 APRIL 2023 at 18:00 BST (UK) to be considered. We welcome expressions of interest in advance, which will allow us to provide any relevant updates before the deadline.

1. Technical fit – counts towards 60% of scoring

• Please describe your approach to deliver this brief in the specified timeframes (300 words) 
• Please provide a project plan (e.g. a Gantt chart) outlining your proposed activities and milestones (no more than 1 page) 
• Please outline the experience of your proposed team members who will deliver this project, and give examples of other website projects you have delivered with similar specifications 

2. Cultural fit – counts towards 15% of scoring

• Please describe how your organisation considers its climate impact and makes changes to positively contribute to protecting the environment for future generations? 

3. Costing – counts towards 25% of scoring

• Please provide a cost breakdown of your proposal