Innovative public procurement
Innovative public procurement guide
Barcelona City Council is presenting this guide to public procurement for innovation to help with the strategical channelling of the city’s purchasing power and put it at the service of the public. Using innovative procurement, Barcelona is aiming to help create jobs and growth in the city and boost its social and environmental values while also giving support to innovative undertakings geared towards resolving the public’s problems.
Innovating through procurement at Barcelona City Council
What is public procurement for innovation (PPI)?
It is a new way of procuring and engaging in dialogue with the market to meet the needs for which no solution has been found under ordinary processes
What role does Barcelona play?
Barcelona City Council is committed to innovation in the widest sense and uses its purchasing potential for stimulating innovation aimed at overcoming the challenges of city life and broadening the impact of its social and environmental policies.
Main benefits brought by PPI
For the public: It improves public services by incorporating innovative goods or services.
For industry: It fosters innovative enterprises and SMEs and promotes their development and internationalisation.
For the Administration: It promotes a cultural change and brings in more innovative practices.
The strategy of innovative procurement at Barcelona City Council
The City Council intends to share in the advantages of innovative procurement. To do that it has established as a strategy the implementation of a series of actions, to ensure its procurements foster innovation and, as a result, guarantee and increase people's well-being.
This represents a cultural change and paradigm shift in the organisation’s purchases. It opens the door to a new way of procuring with clear advantages for everyone.
Actions envisaged by the City Council:
Planning purchases
Engaging in a dialogue with the market
Introducing innovation measures into each contract
Introducing technology
Passing on training and knowledge
Identifying new sources of funding
How to make this a reality. Principles and procedures
Public procurement for innovation is not a new procedure for procurement but rather a new way of procuring to meet needs for which no solution has been found in the market.
To make this possible, purchases are structured around four cornerstones:
Identifying challenge and procurements for innovation with a clear and scalable impact.
Identifying the players, preparing work meetings, prior notice of invitations to tender, market consultations and promoting equal treatment.
Choice of procedure, drafting specifications, establishing selection criteria, risk management, funding processes and joint purchases.
Monitoring contract execution and evaluating PPIs.
Barcelona City Council’s Guide to Public Procurement of ICT services
Procurement of ICT services refers to any process of acquiring, maintaining or improving any of the elements associated with communication networks and infrastructures, machinery or physical element for communicating and processing information (computers or terminals), software or digital services. Bearing in mind Barcelona City Council’s wish to transform the current procurement model, this guide aims to provide a comprehensive view of the legal and practical aspects to applying the municipal strategy for purchasing technology. The guide was conceived as a series of cross-cutting measures associated with technology and innovation that strengthen the foundations of social and environmental procurement.