Sorbonne University is seeking suppliers for gift cards and social-assistance cards through an October 9 tender that separates three different uses of prepaid benefits. Offers are due November 10. [S01]

The notice was issued October 7 and first published October 9. The public announcement date is separate from the document’s preparation date. [S01]

The procurement covers year-end cards, prizes and rewards, and emergency financial assistance. The distinction is operational: the intended recipients and reasons for payment differ by lot, even though all three involve a card-based benefit.

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Table 1

Lot

Intended use and recipients

Year-end gift cards

Sorbonne University staff and their children

Prizes and rewards

Staff and students

Social-assistance cards

Emergency and exceptional financial aid for staff

Three purposes within one purchasing process

The year-end lot covers staff and their children, while the second lot supports prizes or recognition for employees and students. The third provides exceptional emergency support for staff following social assessment. The detailed clauses set full-term ceilings of EUR2 million, EUR80,000 and EUR20,000 respectively, excluding VAT and including possible renewals. There is no minimum purchase amount. These are limits on orders, not funds already loaded onto cards. [S01] [S02]

The data behind the story

Sorbonne separates three full-term purchasing ceilings

Maximum amounts for the entire framework, including possible renewals. No minimum order is guaranteed.

EUR excluding VAT
Source
Sorbonne original consultation dossier

Full-term maxima including optional renewals, not annual budgets, awarded revenue or actual card distribution.

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Sorbonne separates three full-term purchasing ceilings (EUR excluding VAT)
CategoryFull-term ceiling
Year-end staff and children cards2,000,000 EUR excluding VAT
Staff and student prizes80,000 EUR excluding VAT
Emergency staff assistance20,000 EUR excluding VAT

Keeping the lots separate makes those purposes visible. The gift-card lots specify EUR20, EUR30, EUR50 and EUR70 denominations, physical or digital delivery and at least 12 months of validity from activation. The emergency card has EUR300 face value and an essential-needs restriction. The full-term ceilings sum to EUR2.1 million, but a separate annual-estimate paragraph is internally inconsistent: its EUR250,000 total differs from the listed EUR1.5 million, EUR30,000 and EUR3,000 components. Those annual estimates therefore do not establish a reliable purchasing forecast. [S02]

Published selection criteria before any supplier award

The detailed documents provide a firm initial year with three possible annual renewals, up to 48 months, rather than a guaranteed four-year order. Offers must remain valid for 180 days. Price carries 40% of supplier evaluation and technical quality 60%. Within the technical portion, the emergency-aid lot places more weight on card features and less on the platform, support and sustainability than the two gift-card lots. [S01] [S02]

The data behind the story

Sorbonne gives emergency-aid card features greater evaluation weight

Technical subcriteria expressed as percentage points of the whole evaluation. Price adds a separate 40 points to each lot.

Percentage points of total evaluation
Source
Sorbonne original consultation dossier

Evaluation weights, not actual provider scores, measured service quality or environmental outcomes.

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Sorbonne gives emergency-aid card features greater evaluation weight (Percentage points of total evaluation)
CategoryGift-card lots 1 and 2Emergency-aid lot 3
Card features20 Percentage points of total evaluation30 Percentage points of total evaluation
Dedicated platform10 Percentage points of total evaluation5 Percentage points of total evaluation
After-sales and technical support15 Percentage points of total evaluation12 Percentage points of total evaluation
Delivery10 Percentage points of total evaluation10 Percentage points of total evaluation
Sustainability5 Percentage points of total evaluation3 Percentage points of total evaluation

The clauses require annual anonymised reporting of ordered and spent value and the return of unspent or uncollected balances to the university through a credit or refund. These are supplier obligations, not already achieved recovery. The reviewed documents establish no selected supplier, awarded amount, final recipient count or completed card issuance. Supplier price fields in the schedule are blank; illustrative scoring orders are not actual orders. [S02]

The verified development is the opening of a purchasing process for several defined benefit functions. Supplier selection and actual distribution will come later; the tender itself is not evidence that staff or students have received new balances.

Photograph: Chragon, May 12, 2010, Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. The photograph is resized and cropped for responsive formats. The photograph, its image adaptations and the derived social image remain under CC BY-SA 4.0. This licence statement concerns those images.