NEWSLETTER NO 9, DECEMBER 2022
Welcome to this Urban Agenda Newsletter: we offer you the latest news of the EU Urban Agenda on Public Procurement Partnerships work. Our motivation to create a better future for all citizens in Europe is reflected in the items and contributions in this Newsletter. Because we care.
This EU Urban Agenda Public Procurement Newsletter contains information about the progress of the Partnerships work and contributions of our partners.
INDEX
- Congratulations: 5th anniversary of the Urban Agenda Partnership
- Summary of the Urban Agenda Partnership meeting - 2 & 3 November 2022
- Launch of The EU funded Horizon projects PROCEDIN and PROTECT and the EU funded LIFE project Future Proof Sports Pitches
- PROTECT event in Barcelona during the Smart City Expo World Congress- 17 November 2022
- Winners of the European Capital of Innovation Awards 2022
- The European Week of Regions and Cities 2022, summary of the workshop “Achieving the EU Green Deal through Responsible Public Procurement and Innovation”
- The EIC Innovation Procurement Program
- Big Buyers Symposium in Brussels - 9 November 2022
- Inclusive Public Procurement Playbook launch
- LEVEL(s): What’s in it for cities?
- Introducing the new European Urban Initiative
- Newsletter information links
- Merry Christmas & Happy New Year
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CONGRATULATIONS:
network growth:
action growth:
The 7 actions in our 2018-2021 Action Plan have been achieved:
- Action 1: Guidance on building city strategic procurement and how to manage strategic procurement
- Action 2: Measuring spend and wider impact in European Cities
- Action 3: Recommendation(s) for funding for procurement of innovation, strategic procurement, joint cross-border procurement and in particular social procurement and circular procurement
- Action 4: Innovation procurement brokerage
- Action 5: Legal Framework on Innovative Public Procurement
- Action 6: Develop a flexible and customized concept for Local Competence Centers for innovative and sustainable procurement
- Action 7: Competence building in Circular Procurement
In our 2022-2024 Action Plan we will follow up on 3 new Actions:
- Action 1: Develop a reflection board supported by a sustainable platform where cities, regions, member states and the European Commission/institutions exchange ideas and experiences on strategic public procurement.
- Action 2: Achieve EU Green Deal goals by using public procurement and innovation as a strategic tools.
- Action 3: Enabling Sustainable Economic Recovery through Public Procurement
our GOALS:
2017: Developing key recommendations and exchange of knowledge in the following areas:
- Regulations: i.e. recommendations on better regulations on public innovative procurement.
- Tools/services: i.e. special focus will be in the development of practical guidelines and powerful tools, which will facilitate preparation and implementation of public procurement of innovative goods and services.
- Strategy: i.e. to explore new public innovation procurement methodologies.
2022: additional actions
The Urban Agenda for the EU is part of the EU’s commitment to both the New Urban Agenda and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The actions addressed in this Action Plan correspond with the set commitments and goals in these international agreements. Innovative and Responsible Public Procurement is a topic that touches upon several of the cities critical challenges, both concerning social, economic and environmental issues.
The partnership acknowledges the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) formulated by the United Nations as relevant for their work. The global challenges they address are also the challenges faced at an urban level. While working on the additional actions, the partnership aims to achieve the SDGs and the set targets.
DELIVERABLES:
- Action Plan 2018-2021: Public Procurement Partnership final Action Plan | Futurium (europa.eu)
- Action Plan 2022-2024: Urban Agenda Partnership on Innovative and Responsible Public Procurement for the EU: Action Plan 2022 approved! | Futurium (europa.eu)
- Free of charge E-learning course with 7 modules: https://uapp.maester.com/
- Video 2018 (7 actions): https://youtu.be/8BT84mDWpq4
- Video 2022 (3 actions): https://youtu.be/6YlALB4FbNY
- Infographics in print and web version in 11 languages: English version: https://ec.europa.eu/futurium/en/system/files/ged/urban_en_voor_web.pdf
- Brochure April 2020: https://ec.europa.eu/futurium/en/system/files/ged/brochure_ia_v3.pdf (and an updated version in making and being published in February 2023)
- International and local newsletters
- Publications on the Futurium website: Public Procurement | Futurium (europa.eu)
- Free online course on Strategic Procurement (URBACT): Strategic Public Procurement | urbact.eu
- Mutual exchange on knowledge, tools, experience and best practices on innovative, sustainable, circular, social and gender responsible public procurement.
We want to say THANK YOU to all partners, participants, stakeholders, expert organisations, EU city-, region- and member states representatives, EU institution colleagues and observing associates and everyone who cooperated and created a European public procurement network and helped achieving the Urban Agenda public procurement goals.
If you would like to join our Urban Agenda Partnership you are welcome! Please contact our coordinator Valentina Schippers-Opejko at vopejko@haarlem.nl
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Summary of the Urban Agenda Partnership meeting in Haarlem ON 2 & 3 November 2022
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The Urban Agenda Partnership held its first physical meeting in Haarlem since Covid-19, on the 2nd and 3rd of November 2022. Coordinator Valentina Schippers-Opejko welcomed all partners in the Municipality of Haarlem. Presenting an alternate agenda with various interesting topics and speakers, the Partnership meeting was both valuable and joyful since we were able to meet each other in person again.
This year we started with the Urban Agenda Action Plan 2022 and the formation of Action Groups realizing our three goals for the coming years:
- Create a European public procurement platform
- Realise the EU Green Deal goals through public procurement
- Create tools to achieve sustainable economy recovery
During the Action Group team meetings an activating ice-breaker was carried out to share insights into the roles within each Action Group. First actions being created are the set up for the Action Groups work the coming years.
A variety of topics were presented by speakers in our public procurement field of interest:
- Valentina Schippers-Opejko, Coordinator of the UA Partnership, presented the rules, objectives and goals of the UA Partnership Action Plan 2022-2024
- Karin van Dantzig, Dutch Urban Envoy, presented an update on the Urban Agenda related issues in general and informed us of the presentation of findings to the Urban Matters (DGUM) meeting, which will take place in March 2023.
- Matthew Baqueriza-Jackson, Policy Advisor URBACT, gave an interesting presentation of the start of the URBACT IV programme. The programme will continue to support cities working on integrated, sustainable urban development through EU cooperation. The next call for Action Planning networks opens in January 2023; submit your project idea and find partners here.
- Helena O’Rourke-Potocki, Circular & Sustainable economy and procurement Officer at ICLEI, shared updates about ICLEI’s initiatives, one of which includes the Eco Procura event being hosted in Lisbon in the summer of 2023 (ICLEI website).
- Rudie de Vries, Sustainability Advisor City of Haarlem, shared information about the Big Buyers projects and the Digital Public Buyers Platform and the Communities of Practice. Find more information on innovation procurement here.
- Alexandru Matei, Partnership and Communication Officer European Urban Initiative, presented the EUI initiatives. Interesting is that cities are encouraged to submit proposals for funds relating to for example circularity and carbon neutrality construction/renovation projects. Proposal submits can be done by January 19, 2023. Find all information here.
- Marlene Grauer, Manager Procure2Innovate, presented the European network of competence Centres for innovation procurement (website procure2innovate.eu).
The EU funded Horizon and LIFE projects were presented by representatives of the projects PROCEDIN, PROTECT and LIFE Future Proof Sports Pitches. These brand new EU funded projects has just started and Huub Saris (City of Amsterdam), Louise Knight (University of Twente) and Anabel Peiro Baquedano (Corvers) proudly presented the launch, goals and plans of these projects. You can find specific information about these projects in below article.
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LAUNCH OF The EU funded Horizon and LIFE projects PROCEDIN, PROTECT and Future Proof Sports Pitches
In October 2022 the EU funded Horizon project PROCEDIN was launched. PROCEDIN gets its name from PROcurement Capability – Embedding and Driving Innovation and is a two-year project aiming to create several deliverables in order to map, increase accessibility and promote the use of Procurement of Innovation (POI). The project will accelerate POI in a specific domain covering two critical areas of innovation – circular economy and green mobility – in the context of European cities’ innovation for sustainability and resilience agendas.
The PROCEDIN consortium consists of the University Twente, PEDAL consulting, F6S, the Municipality of Haarlem and the Municipality of Gabrovo. On October 26 the kick-off meeting was held in Haarlem:
How can cities, procurers and SME’s benefit from PROCEDIN?:
- targeted trainings on legal framework of innovation
- knowledge and experience sharing, best practices and learning resources
- access to a network of innovative procurers and SME’s
One of the first project actions is the creation and distribution of a survey focused on the POI resources for buyers and small-medium sized enterprises (SME’s). By collecting this data the project will be able to address the needs and requirements of each of these groups.
Please fill in the survey to get involved in this project.
More information on www.procedin.eu or via the social media platforms LinkedIn and Twitter.
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The Municipality of Amsterdam and the Municipally of Haarlem are collaborating in the recently started EU co-funded Scale Up project LIFE Future Proof Sports Pitches. The main objectives of this project are to create innovative and sustainable artificial sports pitches, keeping the following elements in mind:
- Sustainable building processes
- Improve the use of circular materials
- Generating of energy
- Climate adaptiveness
To get an idea of possibilities for creating future proof sports parks, please watch this video (English subtitles available under cc tab).
The Scale Up project is currently at the start of the research phase and aims to implement a new innovative procurement method/Scale Up. Together with the market we develop new applications, starting with an Orientation and Development phase. Applications for the tender will be available in 2023.
Are you interested in replicating? Please let us know by sending an email to kbuitenkamp@haarlem.nl
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In June 2022 the EU funded Horizon project PROTECT was launched. This two-year project aims to bring together leading European cities and regions willing to procure climate services solutions using earth-observation data to adapt and mitigate the effects of climate change and achieve their climate policies and actions.
The PROTECT consortium is led by the G.A.C. Group and consists of various European organisations, whereunder the Urban Agenda Partnership represented by the City of Haarlem.
PROTECT will prepare the ground for a Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) – an innovation procurement approach that enables the public sector to steer the development of new solutions directly towards its needs, even before their market entry.
Who will benefit from PROTECT?:
- Cities, regions and other procurement organisations interested in the potential uptake of climate services through a PCP
- SMES, companies and developers with ideas for innovative or disruptive climate services that help adapt and mitigate the effects of climate change
- Stakeholder initiatives facilitating the development of climate services through the provision and use of Earth-Observation data.
How can YOU benefit from participating in PROTECT?:
- Assistance in defining and aggregating clear and realistic needs for climate services
- Experience sharing and good practice transfer with procurement peers from all over the EU
- Insights into climate services market providers’ existing and future solutions and technologies
- Targeted training, continuous knowledge and fresh information on earth observation, climate services and innovation procurement
- Strategic positioning for participating in the upcoming PCP.
Would you like to know more about PROTECT or do you want to be part of the Community of Procurers?, please visit the PROTECT website here.
If you like to be referenced as a service provider by the PROTECT project and might get the opportunity to present your services to participating public buyers in the frame of an Open Market Consultation, please fill in this survey and participate.
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PROTECT Event IN BARCELONA on November 17th
The EU funded project PROTECT held its first high-level event on November 17th during the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona. One of the PROTECT consortium partners – our coordinator of the Urban Agenda Partnership Valentina Schippers-Opejko – participated as speaker.
Key findings of this event are:
- Earth Observation can help cities to tackle different challenges they are dealing with – from waste collection to climate change adaptation
- Collaboration between cities and innovative small- and medium enterprises is crucial
- Involvement of the market parties in an early stage is important in order to increase the success factor in finding innovative and optimal solutions for the challenges.
Find all information of this conference here.
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WINNERS OF THE EUROPEAN CAPITAL OF INNOVATION AWARDs 2022
On 7 December 2022, at the European Innovation Council Summit in Brussels, the European Commission announced the winners of the 8th edition of the European Capital of Innovation Awards (iCapital). Supported by the European Innovation Council under Horizon Europe, the prize recognises the role cities play in shaping the local innovation ecosystem and promoting game-changing innovation.
We congratulate the winners:
For this 8th edition six finalists presented their cities to be the most innovative European city this year:
- Aix-Marseille-Provence Métropole (France), Espoo (Finland) en València (Spain) for the European Capital of Innovation Award for cities with over 250.000 inhabitants, and
- Aveiro (Portugal) and Mainz (Germany), the city of Haarlem (the Netherlands) for the European Rising Innovative City 2022 for cities with less than 250.000 inhabitants.
The prize recognises the role cities play in shaping the local innovation ecosystem and promoting game-changing innovation.
Haarlem is an innovative city, stimulating and creating sustainable, social and circular projects to achieve its city goals: 100% circular procurement in 2030, 100% gas free in 2040 and 100% climate neutral in 2050. This is the short video about Haarlem, its ambitions and achievements.
Find more information from all cities here.
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The European Week of Regions and Cities 2022
“Achieving the EU Green Deal through Responsible Public Procurement and Innovation", summary of the Online workshop session October 12, 2022 by the Municipality of Haarlem and the European Innovation Council.
The EU Urban Agenda on Innovative and Responsible Public Procurement has teamed up with the EIC to explore synergies for the benefit of both European cities and regions and EIC-supported innovators. Their joint presentation supplied answers on how cities and regions across Europe could exploit the opportunities offered by the EIC, mainly through innovation procurement, and offering concrete examples of how the challenges faced by regional stakeholders could attract the interest of top-notch European innovators.
The EU Urban Agenda also presented the New Action Plan by introducing their 3 new actions: 1) create a platform for procurers to exchange knowledge and experience, 2) achieve EU Green Deal goals by using public procurement and innovation and 3) learn how to rebuild the economy during a crisis using public procurement as a strategic tool.
The workshop was moderated by Bertrand Wert, Innovation Procurement Advisor, EIC. Speakers were:
- Viorel Peca, Head of Unit Transition and Business Acceleration, EC.
- Valentina Schippers - Opejko, Coordinator Urban Agenda Partnership on Innovative and Responsible Public Procurement, City of Haarlem / Urban Agenda.
- Vasileios Tsanidis, Innovation Procurement Advisor, EIC.
- Rudie de Vries, Sustainability and circularity advisor, Municipality of Haarlem.
Conclusions to this successful session are:
- Innovation Procurement is a tool that can help cities and regions modernize their services and tackle their challenges enabling them to meet their twin goals: Digitalization and implementation of the Green Deal.
- The EIC has set up an Innovation Procurement support Program that aims at facilitating the implementation of more and better in quality innovation procurements by stakeholders such as Regions and Cities as well as the access to those procurement markets of top innovators across Europe as potential suppliers.
- In the context of the EIC Innovation Procurement support Program Cities and Regions could inter-alia receive support to co-create with innovators innovative solutions for their challenges (Innobuyers Program: https://innobuyer.eu/), organize pitching events with EIC beneficiaries, participate in the EIC Communities of buyers etc.
- The strategic collaboration between the EIC and the Urban Agenda aims at highlighting the regional and urban dimension of the EIC Innovation Procurement support Program.
- The pilot that the municipality of Haarlem is currently implementing in the area of food waste management is illustrating the power of the strategic collaboration between the EIC and Urban Agenda. The municipality of Haarlem is piloting in 6 restaurants in the city, AI innovative solutions to monitor the consumption and the appetite of clients in regard to the offered plates affecting thus positively food waste.
Please find the link to this recorded session here.
More information about the European Innovation Council in the article below!
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EIC Innovation Procurement Program
European Innovation Council (EIC) is a flagship EU Program; the EIC support includes grants to top-notch innovators in Europe and horizontal support to the EIC innovators aiming at accelerating EIC innovations and growth of top deep tech companies.
In this article, Vassilis Tsanidis and Bertrand Wert - Innovation Procurement Advisors at EIC - will tell you more about the EIC Innovation Procurement Program which aims to support breakthrough technologies and innovations in Europe, contributing thus to the scaling -up of top notch innovators through procurement.
‘’What is the EIC Innovation Procurement Program?’’
The EIC Innovation Procurement Program connects Europe’s leading companies and organizations with highly innovative beneficiaries funded by the European Innovation Council. The solutions offered by the EIC beneficiaries could help Europe’s leading public and private procurers tackle their current and future challenges. This creates a mutual benefit that can be achieved through Innovation Procurement.
‘’What are the support actions foreseen by the EIC Innovation Procurement Program?’’
The EIC Innovation Procurement Program is carried out in the context of the EIC BAS, offering support to all EIC beneficiaries, notably to pathfinder, transition and acceleration innovators. The EIC BAS is implementing a program that offers the opportunity to buyers (public and private) to get familiar with innovative solutions offered by the EIC beneficiaries through mainly pitching and matchmaking events. More information on this action can be found here.
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BIG BUYERS SYMPOSIUM IN BRUSSELS ON NOVEMBER 9, 2022
Big Buyers for Climate and Environment is a European Commission Initiative for promoting collaboration between big public buyers in implementing strategic public procurement for sustainable solutions.
On November 9th the Big Buyers Initiative hosted its 2022 symposium. The event aims to promote and disseminate the work of the four Big Buyers working groups: Zero emission construction sites, heavy duty electric vehicles, circular construction, and digital healthcare. In addition, the event highlights why cross border procurement collaboration is important, and provides an overview of the next planned activities of the Big Buyers Initiative.
Valentina Schippers-Opejko (City of Haarlem), Louise Knight (University Twente) and Dominika Fröhlichová (PEDAL Consulting) attended the symposium. As representatives of the Urban Agenda on Responsible and Innovative Public Procurement and the EU funded project PROCEDIN they have gathered information and promoted the partnership and its work and the EU funded projects we are now involved in (PROCEDIN, PROTECT and LIFE Future Proof Sports Pitches).
More information to be found on: BigBuyers | Home
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INCLUSIVE PUBLIC PROCUREMENT PLAYBOOK LAUNCH
In October 2022 the Inclusive Public Procurement Playbook was launched.
At a glance, this Playbook presents the case for change towards inclusive public procurement and defines the standards, procedures, strategies and best practices for public procurement stakeholders to enhance supplier diversity while guaranteeing important public procurement principles. Moreover, the Playbook aims to guide SMEs, social enterprises and inclusive businesses on how to navigate public procurement processes; as well as to support public procurement stakeholders on how to enhance SME-based inclusive business solutions to serve vulnerable communities.
You may download the full report by clicking here.
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LEVEL(s): What’s in it for cities?
Level(s) is the European Commission’s first-ever framework to improve the sustainability of buildings. Using existing standards, it offers a new approach to assessing and reporting on the sustainability of buildings throughout their full lifecycle.
Please find below the interview with Valentina Schippers-Opjeko for the Level(s) factsheet, which is available in 6 languages):
Given you coordinate the Urban Agenda Partnership, how do you think Level(s) can support sustainable and responsible public procurement?
‘Level(s) can play an important role if you would like to procure sustainably and responsibly. Its six macro objectives include social, environmental and economic considerations. By using these as a starting point, public procurement can help address social, economic and environmental challenges. The Level(s) indicators can help formulate selection and award criteria.’
More broadly, in what ways do you think Level(s) can support stakeholders in Europe’s cities with their urban planning and sustainability targets?
‘I think Level(s) can support stakeholders in cities by focusing on the skills gaps and capacity building of professionals, by helping them to implement and use this framework, and by stimulating lifecycle thinking. There are many useful materials on Level(s) already, such as its free e-Learning program in six languages.’
From a practical perspective, how does Level(s) address some of the key issues you have come across in your experiences in the City of Haarlem?
‘Level(s) has a practical and holistic approach and is based on existing standards. You can implement this framework according to your needs and ambitions. Level(s) addresses key issues such as lifecycle thinking, sustainability, transition to circular economy, European Green Deal goals, climate adaptation. If you want to know if your organisation’s strategy and ambitions are achieved, measurement is very important. “To measure is to know”, goes the proverb ‒ and Level(s) helps to do so’.
More information on the Level(s) website.
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Introducing the new European Urban Initiative (EUI)
former known as Urban Innovative Actions (UIA)
EUI is a brand-new initiative for the programming period 2021-2027 aiming to provide a more coherent and coordinated offer of support to cities, providing all the information and opportunities for cities in one place.
EUI has a budget of around EUR 450 million for the period 2021-2027 offering:
- 80% direct co-funding of up to €5M for cities to experiment in the development of transferable and scalable innovative solutions to local urban challenges of EU relevance
- a new knowledge platform for cities to access the latest know-how on all urban matters
- strengthening and building of capacities, knowledge and skills for cities in collaboration with the programme URBACT IV
- supports the Urban Agenda for the EU
- supports intergovernmental cooperation on urban matters
- maximising synergies and complementarity with URBACT IV
- establishing National ‘Urban Contact Points’ in all participating EU countries
Find more information here.
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Newsletter information links
URBACT Newsletter on Strategic Procurement with an interesting article about Cities4CSR joining forces with the Urban Agenda Partnership, written by Steffen Wetzstein.
The Public Procurement Gazette, with articles on the Big Buyers symposium, where the coordinator of the Urban Agenda Partnership was present.
Urban Agenda for the EU newsletter with information about the 2023 Cities Forum, new UA partnerships and more.
The European Urban Initiative newsletter, with news, calls and events.
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GENERAL INFORMATION
All information about the EU Urban Agenda Public Procurement partnership can be found here.
Would you like to know more about the possibilities for your organisation or are you interested in becoming a partner? Please contact the coordinator of the Partnership Valentina Schippers-Opejko by e-mail: vopejko@haarlem.nl
Would you like to receive all UA Public Procurement newsletters in the future? Please send an e-mail to: djansens@haarlem.nl
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This newsletter is a production of the EU Urban Agenda coordination team Partnership for Innovative and Responsible Public Procurement.
City of Haarlem
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