#ENRIITCyourCoffee Season 2: Episode 3 -“Joint E-platforms for Procurement from RIs”

We had another wonderful ENRIITCyourCoffee session today. After the weekly coffee mug group photo, the session opened with an introduction by Nikolaj Zangenberg, Centre Manager at the Danish Technological Institute and ILO for CERN and XFEL. Nikolaj presented the topic for discussion: joint e-platforms for procurement from Research Infrastructures. He talked about the Big Science Business Forum in 2018, and the fruitful discussions that were had amongst ILOs. Nikolaj talked about codes that are used by businesses to categorise certain sections of the organisation, but that often aren’t standardised between organisations.

Previous attempts to provide standardised codes have often not been sufficient and so different sets of procurement codes have emerged. This has turned out to be an extra complication and barrier when navigating the market.

Nikolaj invited attendees to use the Menti platform to identify who was in the audience (there was an equal split between RIs and ILOs). He then showed a results from an ENRIITC survey and then asked attendees to indicate how positive they are towards common procurement codes and joint RI-procurement platforms. in short, more people felt that there were benefits than barriers towards common procurement codes.

There was then a discussion on why codes are important (they don’t seem to be for suppliers), and also around keywords lowering the barriers for broadening the RIs using a common portal.

Nikolaj then introduced his co-hosts of the session – ILOs Paolo Acunzo (ITA) and Toon Verhoeven (NL). They discussed the way RIs engage companies when procuring supplies and services.

What became clear from the conversation was that harmanised procedures, common names and number codes would be useful. Victor Saez (Head of Market Intelligence Group at Fusion for Energy) agreed with this approach and added some useful suggestions. He mentioned that even within organisations there seems to be different codes (let alone between organisations). There should be a single procurement dashboard. Victor also mentioned the e-PRIOR and EU-supply platforms, as his opinion on them.

Arne Jensen gave a low ranking to procurement codes, and stated his reasons why. In line with Paolo, he proposed identifying standardising keywords or a common dictionary for all RIs. It would make it cheaper and easier for organisations.

Ilaria Nardello asked the group if there are any good examples of existing initiatives (there was a suggestion that examples could be posted on the ENRIITC LinkedIn group “#ENRIITCyourNetwork” here: www.linkedin.com/groups/8992845

Ute Gunsenheimer then talked about the European Tenders Electronic Daily (TED), which is the European public procurement journal, and suggested that their approach to keywords could be something to explore.

Nikolaj and Anne-Charlotte Joubert then wrapped up the session and encouraged people with more questions and thoughts to head over to the ENRIITCyourNetwork LinkedIn group.

You can watch the full session below.