Following UNESCO’s adoption of the CONNECTing the Dots Outcome document in 2015 as its new approach to Internet issues as well as the successful development and application of the IPDC Media Development Indicators, UNESCO is pleased to launch a new project: “Defining Internet Universality Indicators”. This project aims to elaborate appropriate Internet indicators which can enrich stakeholders’ capacity to assess Internet development, broaden international consensus and foster online democracy and human rights towards knowledge societies engaged in sustainable development. This study will be founded on the UNESCO concept of Internet Universality as the guiding framework which promotes an Internet based on human Rights, and the principles of Openness, Accessibility and Multi-stakeholder participation (abbreviated as the R.O.A.M principles).

For this new project, UNESCO launches this call for proposals to carry out the key deliverable and related tasks within a one-year time frame from April 2017 to April 2018.

Deliverable: Develop and finalize an elaborated set of Internet Universality Indicators through a global multi-stakeholder consultation online and offline.

The specific objectives are:

1.     To develop and finalize an elaborated draft set of Internet Universality indicators and sub-indicators in line with international human rights standards and within the focus of the Internet Universality concept, with realistic and practical applicability to countries at all levels of statistical development.

2.     To plan and conduct an inclusive global and regional consultation process with multi-stakeholder groups, which will feed into the drafting and elaboration of Internet Universality indicators, including offline consultations as well as online tools via building and maintaining a dedicated online platform/website with multi-lingual access.

The final deliverable setting out the indicators will take the form of a policy paper in English with maximum 100 standard pages (minimum of 320 words each) excluding annexes and bibliography, as well as a project online platform/website on Internet Universality indicators under UNESCO domain name and server.

A draft of the deliverable will be presented on the project’s online platform/website (to be created under this project for consultation) and the final version will likely be released as a UNESCO publication. If the budget allows it, the publication will be translated into 4-6 UN official languages, which will inform UNESCO’s 195 Member States and other international policy-makers on internet-related policy making.

Each proposal should include: a detailed description of the research methodology, an elaborated plan of a multi-stakeholder consultation, a strategy for the creation of an online platform/website, preliminary elaboration of 5 categories of indicators, a work plan, a timeline, a description of the team including CVs and the requested funding in US$ with a budget breakdown. This budget breakdown should show – if needs be – a minimum and a maximum scale of implementation.

UNESCO, therefore, invites interested researchers, institutions, research consortiums, entities and organizations to submit their proposals, according to the General Terms of Reference by email to internetstudy(at)unesco.org. The deadline for submitting is 28 February 2017, before noon (CET).

To ease the email tracing and facilitate quick processing, kindly use the following script “Proposal for Defining Internet Universality Indicators” as the email subject.

It is important to note that UNESCO has commissioned preliminary research on the Internet indicators which should be considered as a basis to develop this final deliverable. This initial background paper will be provided to interested submitters upon request via the same email address: internetstudy(at)unesco.org

Submissions will be acknowledged by email upon receipt but ONLY selected organizations will receive further notification and correspondences.

For further enquiries, you may contact Ms Xianhong Hu and Mr Josselyn Guillarmou.

Please access the General Terms of Reference here.

Reference documents and links:

• Concept Paper of Internet Universality
• UNESCO Internet Study
• Outcome document of the CONNECTing-the-dots conference
• UNESCO Series on Internet Freedom
• Media development indicators: a framework for assessing media development