Adopting a model of a Competence centre on IPP - The case of PIANOo
About this good practice
Innovation public procurement (IPP) is considered a strategic procurement, although the success of IPP processes implementation requires the convergence of many factors, but definitely the existence of a complexity of different skills within public procurement units and all public organisation or gathered from external support organisations.
The level of awareness regarding IPP framework (legal, mechanisms, advantages, etc…) is very low in Portugal.
The model of competence centre (CC) on IPP to support public procures showed to be of most value. There are few examples already well established in Europe, all of them have national recognised value propositions, but also political mandates from the national governments to operate.
The implementation process of the Dutch CC PIANOo was considered as one of the most complete experiences among the existent CC in Europe, and an excellent reference of a policy instrument with great potential to be transferred.
The practice itself was a methodology to support the acquisition of the critical information necessary to transfer the model and evaluate the opportunity to implement a CC on IPP within the Portuguese context.
Such detailed and validated information was not available, therefore it was necessary to produce “intelligence” based on desk research and interviews with PIANOo staff. To make this possible in an effective way, an international consultant speaking native Dutch was hired to implement this methodology.
Resources needed
The resources involved in the set up of this practice can be described approximately as:
Personnel cost – 50 FTE; Financial resources – 7500 euro
The resources involved to run this practice are not yet totally found out due to the fact of the ongoing nature.
Evidence of success
Realise that it took more than a decade to PIANNOo to get a permanent character. The evaluations over all the years show that, many users and stakeholders highly appreciated the added value of PIANOo.it is clear from the Dutch case that in order to set-up a successful competence centre, it might take quite some time and effort. Luckily, the first steps of the competence centre PIANOo has been evaluated during those years, which resulted in conclusions and recommendations from those evaluators.
Potential for learning or transfer
One of the important learnings that came out from this practice was the methodological approach.
Information regarding the Dutch policy framework for IPP; Definition of IPP in the Dutch law; Evidences of how IPP is strategically used to address public goals in particular of innovation policies; Institutional level of commitment of public sector on the IPP topic (Governmental, top management of public administration, public procurers, buyers), among other, was not available in a structured way. Information regarding description of PIANOo features, like background establishment of the organization; Services descriptions and tools; Client groups; Staff competences; KPI’s; Financing; Budget, requires a direct and trustable way of gathering it.
The assignment of a consultant able to speak dutch and the interviews with colleagues from PIANOo were critical to map barriers and identify opportunities to envisaged actions to strategize the introduction of a CC on IPP in Portugal.