Releasing the Power of Procurement

Releasing the Power of Procurement – Crossing the ‘Valley of Death’ Between Pilots and Large-Scale Deployment of IoT-Enabled Services

Please register here.

In the European Union, public procurement accounts for 14% of GDP demonstrating the high potential of public procurement to support policy objectives, to stimulate innovation and hence, jobs and economic growth.

But current public procurement processes are struggling to keep up with the fast pace of digital innovation and data-driven solutions in key application domains such as smart cities & communities, health-care and energy. As a result, public administrations and their communities are not reaping the full potential of digital transformation through public procurement.

Public procurement as a tool has largely failed to help administrations and companies cross the ‘valley of death’ for digital and data-driven solutions between small-scale experimentation and real-life scale-up across Europe. The net result is a European digital transformation with brakes on due to the inadequate risk profiles along the innovation cycles. Strategic cooperation and interoperability between public administrations across Europe can help to lower the risks for first movers while helping SMEs to create scalable markets for innovative solutions across Europe.

This workshop aims to

  1. Stimulate a debate on the benefits and shortcomings of public procurement processes and how to fix the shortcomings to benefit both public purchasers and the local innovation ecosystem.
  2. Discuss the role of open standards for public administrations and the local innovation ecosystem for procuring digital, IoT-enabled solutions
  3. Explore possible ways forward in deepening the European cooperation in procurement of innovative IoT solutions and services.
  4. Showcase innovative procurement methods from advanced sectors as well as domain frontrunners
Agenda

09:30 – 09:45 Welcome

  • Peter Wintlev-Jensen, Policy Officer, IoT Unit, DG Connect, European Commission
  • Martin Brynskov, Chair, OASC / Coordinator, SynchroniCity & NGIoT

09:45 – 10:00 Setting the Scene

  • Davor Meersman, CEO, OASC

10:00 – 12:00 Panel debate: How Can the Public Sector Foster Innovation? Benefits and Challenges of Experiments and Procurement

Input Talk: Lieve Bos, Policy Officer, Innovation Unit, DG Connect, European Commission

  • Innovation Procurement in the EU

Panel speakers:

Karin Goedheid, Digipolis Antwerp

  • The current state of procurement and how to enable innovation in the public service

Nathan Pierce, Greater London Authority / Sharing Cities

  • Role of procurement to stimulate investment in cities & communities

Catherine De Dordolot, GOVERN & LAW

  • Power of Law: Legal Perspective on Innovation Procurement

Lieve Bos, Policy Officer, Innovation Unit, DG Connect, European Commission

Moderated by Martin Brynskov, OASC

12:00 – 13:00 Lunch Break

13:00 – 14:30 SMEs & Public Procurement

SMEs are considered the backbone of the European economy. Does public procurement take the needs of the local innovation ecosystem and particularly SMEs into account? How can standards-based procurement foster a thriving local economy?

Panel speakers:

Sebastiano Toffaletti, Secretary-General, Digital SME Alliance / ETSI

Marlene Grauer, Coordinator, Procure2Innovate Project / Association for Supply Chain Management, Procurement and Logistics

Joao Rodrigues Frade, Head of Sector, Building Blocks, DG DIGIT, European Commission

Moderated by Davor Meersman, OASC

14:30 – 15:00 Coffee Break

15:00 – 16:30  Best Practices & Next Steps for Innovation Procurement in Europe

Moderator: Bernadett Köteles-Degrendele, EUROCITIES

Panelists

  • Amalia Ochoa, ICLEI [TBC]
  • Ian Makgill, OpenOpps / “They Buy For You” project
  • Ramon Maspons, Agència de Qualitat i Avaluació Sanitàries de Catalunya (AQuAS)
  • Wim De Kinderen, Brainport Eindhoven / ENoLL

16:30 – 16:45: Conclusion and Main Takeaways

16:45 – 17:30 Stakeholder Session: Certification for Interoperability for data-driven and digital solutions – Feedback from the Procurement Community