This tender aims to address the requirements of the European Commission in concluding a service contract for a studies and Pilot projects for carrying out the common fisheries policy Lot 1: Joint data collection between the fishing sector and the scientific community in Western Waters specified in the Call for Tenders FISH/2007/03 “Studies and Pilot projects for carrying out the common fisheries policy”. The tender bid presented here, which is fully supported by the Chairs of the North Western and South Western RACs, brings together fishers’ organisations and scientific fisheries institutes from six Member States to develop pilot projects for evaluating a range of potential collaborative data collection schemes. The intention is to expand the scope for improved quality of data to support policy decisions and further strengthen the current state of cooperation between fisheries scientists and the fishing industry by implementing joint data collection programmes for fisheries under the competence of the North and South Western Waters RACs.