PROCEDIN organised an online training session titled Building Partnerships: Consortium Building in Innovation Procurement, held on May 29th. The workshop explored essential steps and best practices for establishing impactful consortia. Here, participants were able to gain insights into fostering collaboration with other entities, effectively delivering innovative solutions and confidently navigating the procurement process.
Led by Danijel Pavlica, from F6S, the training session involved all PROCEDIN partners and it started with a welcoming session and a brief introduction to the event’s theme.
PROCEDIN’s coordinator, University of Twente, represented by Esmee Peters, took the lead in presenting the project, highlighting that PROCEDIN is “about procurement of innovation and specifically about how we can leverage all the existing knowledge on procurement of innovation that is already out there”. It was underlined that the project is not necessarily about creating new knowledge, but about sharing all the relevant and useful information that already exists. The team of the PROCEDIN project was also acknowledged, alongside pointing out the funding support from the European Union, and attendees were encouraged to explore the project’s website, which serves as a hub for many resources and training opportunities.
Afterwards, the training session continued with Emily Even and Jeffrey van Beusekom from the Municipality of Amsterdam, who delved into the topic of consortium building with a presentation of the LIFE Project they are involved in as an example. Emily Evan, who is the Sustainability Advisor of the SCALE UP project: Future Proof Sports Pitches, initiated the presentation highlighting the project’s goals, emphasising the need to address challenges associated with the increasing demand for turf pitches amidst urban expansion. Emily Evan then focused on the environmental concerns linked with artificial grass usage, including micro plastic pollution, CO2 emissions, and water usage. To deal with this, the SCALE UP project aims to transform 225 pitches in Amsterdam and Harlem, prioritizing sustainability and resilience in sports infrastructure. Moreover, the project’s aims were outlined defining sustainability through four key ambitions: smart and clean practices, circularity, energy efficiency, and climate adaptation.
Following this presentation, Jeffrey van Beusekom, the Procurement Advisor of the SCALE UP project, explained the Innovation Partnership picked, which progresses in three phases: tender, research and development, and commercial. The flexibility of this approach was emphasized, allowing the interactive refinement of offers, and the dedicated research and development phase for innovation was also brought out, followed by large-scale implementation in the commercial phase. Moreover, it was elaborated on why this innovation partnership was chosen and its advantages were indicated: this approach enables the market to offer, develop, test, and scale “new or significantly improved solutions”; it also facilitates the procurement and large-scale implementation of successful innovations, aligning with sustainability and visions additionally, the innovation partnership fosters long term collaboration between clients, market parties, knowledge institutions, and support associations; and it emphasises innovation in both products and processes as well as system and chain solutions.
The session continued with an engaging Q&A session, allowing the speakers to answer audience questions, making it a place to delve deeper into some of the discussed topics.
Then, the floor was given to Danijel Pavlica with the presentation of PROCEDIN’s Innovation Procurement Community, where the importance of SMEs familiarising themselves with working with governments and public bodies was pointed out. Here, participants were also encouraged to join the community for capacity building opportunities and collaboration. Details on how to join this community were provided, and participants were assured that the community would remain active even after the project terminates, offering ongoing support and resources.
Additionally, it was announced the next training session scheduled for June 26th, focusing on Legal Insights Workshop: Navigating Innovation Procurement Regulations, which aims to provide the audience with valuable insights into navigating the legal aspects of innovation procurement, further enhancing their understanding of the process.
Furthermore, at the end of this workshop, the audience was informed about another event: the upcoming IPTF Conference on June 18th in Brussels, themed Scaling-Up Innovation Procurement in Europe. This conference presents an opportunity for stakeholders to explore and discuss strategies for scaling up innovation procurement initiatives across Europe, fostering collaboration and sharing best practices in the field.
You can watch the full training session here:
