Euroalert.net at the announcement of the opening of UK Government public spending database

As many of you may already know, on 19 November the British Government announced the publication of the database with detailed data of all public spending over £25,000 for the last six months. Well, we are once more really proud to say that Euroalert.net had the honour to assist to this event where the UK Government made such a relevant step towards transparency and open data, which also counted with the presence of some real VIP as renowned as Sir Tim Berners-Lee...

Euroalert.net was kindly invited by the Open Knowledge Foundation to take part in this event organized within the framework of the Open Government Data Camp 2010, and had the opportunity to be part of this very special moment when sentences such as “we want to be the most open government of the world” were pronounced. We really feel very proud for it.

Besides, the nature of the data which have been released has also quite an important meaning for us, as they are very relevant data for Euroalert.net products and services in public procurement information, such as 10ders product reports on public procurement. Knowing exactly the data of companies which have received payments from British public departments and Government will allow Euroalert.net to offer more and better commercial intelligence services regarding public procurement market in the United Kingdom.


One of the most special moments was, without any doubt, when the case of a company which requested the opening of certain data regarding public procurement was mentioned to the audience; a case which, it seems, triggered Government's formal commitment to put this as a priority to become true by the beginning of year 2011. Without knowing so, Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude, was probably talking about Euroalert.net..., as we were the ones who took the case for mediation before the OPSI. This case was something we had the opportunity to talk about in detail at the PSI Meeting 2010 as was later referred at the blog Count Culture which gave some more elements about. You can have a look at some more details and materials we have released related to this case in our project ShowMeTheTenders. We are really glad to have contributed in some way to open these data and make them accessible in the near future.

We leave here for you this photo album of an event where we made one more step towards Euroalert.net objective to build up a pan-European platform for information services on public procurement which will help us to offer you more useful services for SMEs all around Europe.



If you want to have a more personal vision of how was the OGDCamp, you can also read the post published by our CEO in his personal blog, and also have a look at the Twitter hashtags #ogdCamp and #openUK.

Euroalert.net mentioned by Expansión economic daily in an article about the industry created by open data

And the story goes on: In July it was the Spanish newspaper El País that mentioned Euroalert.net in an article about Open Data, and a couple of months later, in September, the economic daily newspaper Cinco Días cited Euroalert.net experience it its analysis about economic opportunities generated by the reuse of public sector information. Now, economic daily Expansión has also published on 18 October its contribution to clarify the real value of the business sector created by open data from public sector. Once again, Euroalert.net is highlighted as one of the pioneering companies in Spain when it comes to take advantage of these opportunities and create value added services for companies all around Europe.

The article entitled "Access to public data, a labyrinth close to solution" (access to PDF full Spanish version) from Mercedes Serraller, gathers the opinions from different parties involved in the Open Data movement in Spain, such as Rafael Rubio, Professor of Constitutional Law at the UCM (Madrid), Nagore de los Rios, director of the Basque Government portal Irekia, or Alvaro Furilo from Pro Bono Público Association.

As always, Euroalert.net is again really proud to be considered as a reference service in the industry and to be contributing as far as we can to spread the culture of reuse. Creating in Spain a culture for open data which will lead to the release of more sources of data and allow companies to create value and build new services, will with no doubt revitalise our economy by creating new opportunities for innovation. Euroalert.net will of course be there.

For Euroalert.net it is being really exciting to be part of this process which is also allowing our community to benefit from the best possible products and services. For that reason, Euroalert.net will keep on making contributions to all possible initiatives, either with our presence (as we did at the Governamental Linked Open Data session at the ICT 2010), by sharing our experiences (as it was the case at FICOD 09 or the PSI Meeting 2010), or by providing resources in initiatives such as ShowMeTheTenders or the release of our own data on public authorities.

We have an exciting challenge ahead and these mentions in so relevant media such as El País, Cinco Días or Expansión, are a good encouragement for Euroalert.net objective to gather business opportunities representing around 17% of EU's GDP in one single pan-European platform on public procurement to provide information services for companies all around the world.

Spending the day with Euroalert.net at the Open Days 2010

Today has been our first day at the Open Days 2010: the 8th European Week of Regions and Cities in Europe. We picked our badge this morning and start running from one workshop to the other, meeting old friends and making new ones.

One thing which has surprised us is the little activity there has been for the Open Days in Twitter today... Euroalert.net has really been one of the very few tweeting with the official hashtag #euopendays. We really felt alone in the conference rooms typing in our computer or our smartphone and somehow disappointed as we though that following others' tweets from other workshops would have enriched the debate... Here's a suggestion for making regions and cities even closer to the public at the Open Days, maybe for 9th edition!

We hope that at least those who follow Euroalert.net in Twitter will have enjoyed with our tweets from the conferences we attended.

Besides this "social media coverage", as we already announced you a couple of months ago Euroalert.net has been at some quite interesting workshops. We met the pre-commercial procurement people from DG Information Society and Media, for an interesting workshop on how public procurement can boost innovation also at regional level, shared some ideas on how to promote entrepreneurship and innovative business with start-up strategies, discussed over how to get public acceptance on controversial new energy technologies projects...

We also had the opportunity to meet our friends from the England's Northwest Brussels Office, from Fundación Comunidad Valenciana, from Stockholm Region, and also from a our own region, Castilla y León, at the exhibition area of the meeting place, and also unexpectedly meet with old friends at the Committee of the Regions lobby entrance!

He are looking forward to more interesting things tomorrow, and will be there telling you everything from the #euopendays. Are you joining us?

Spanish newspaper Cinco Días reviews economic opportunities of information reuse and turns its eyes towards Euroalert.net

Reached this point of year 2010, there is one thing which is quite clear by now: open data movement is a top value and it is here to stay. Throughout the whole year a lot of announcements have been made by administrations, businesses and citizen movements, which have all added efforts in order to make public sector information reuse to gain momentum. Today, it has been the case for the Spanish economic daily Cinco Días, which has published an article in its SME supplement making an overview of business opportunities brought by public open data in machine readable formats suitable for automatic processing (here you have a pdf version of the article – sorry, it is only available in Spanish).

In July, it was the newspaper El País who mentioned Euroalert.net as an example in its article about public open data, and now it is Cinco Días' turn to include Euroalert.net among the reference services regarding the creation of value from public sector information. We are really proud to be mentioned with companies such as LegalSolo or projects of great benefit to Catalan citizens as Rodalia.info, a group of excellent entrepreneurs with whom we share values and concerns. It was a real pleasure having the opportunity to meet them in person at the PSI Meeting 2010 organized by Project Aporta and ePSIplatform.

It is quite good news to know that not only Obama, Gordon Brown or David Cameron listened to the call from the web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee to flood the web with public data in order to create new products and services. Although Spain has still a long way to walk to reach the point of pioneer countries, the fact that financial newspapers show interest for the potential of the sector as a source of business opportunities, will certainly help to make improvements and maybe to create new political bets. For the moment we stick to two good examples of public initiatives mentioned in the article which have been put forward by the Government of the Basque Country (Open Data Euskadi) and the Government from the Principality of Asturias, as main Spanish references regarding public open data.

Once again, we really must thank you, all members of Euroalert.net community, for your daily support which is helping us to grow and gain relevance in on-line information about the European Union for companies and institutions. But above all, this recognition gives us more support to keep on working with even more determination in order for Euroalert.net to create the first pan-European platform for information services in international public procurement.

Euroalert.net will be at the Governamental Linked Open Data networking session at the ICT 2010

During the last week of September Euroalert.net will be at the "ICT2010: Digitally Driven" event, just the week before our next visit to Brussels for the Open Days 2010. Further to covering for all of you the most important European event for ICT research and innovation, Euroalert.net will be very specially present at the Networking session on Governmental Linked Data taking place on 28 September.

This will be the occasion for us to meet some of the members of the Open Data community we only know “digitally” for the moment, through the intense communication and collaboration we have been sharing over the past months. Besides “devirtualising” some people like Jonathan Gray from the OKFN, we will also meet some old friends like Jose Manual Alonso from Fundación CTIC.

As all of you know well, Euroalert.net has been trying to do its bit in the development of open data and the reuse of public sector information by participating in some major events related to it such as FICOD 2009 or by taking part in the PSI Meeting 2010. Euroalert.net keeps close contact with the most relevant actors within the Open Data community in Europe and is devoting an important share of time and resources to encourage the release of data in our area of activity and expertise: public procurement. As a contribution to the community, we document and release these experiences through the project Showmethetenders.net, open to collaboration from any stakeholder and interested party.

We are sure that the networking session at the ICT 2010 will be a quite valuable opportunity to learn from other experiences which are being developed in almost every corner in Europe. It will also be the occasion to meet people whose vision will help us to develop services more and more useful for the whole Euroalert.net comunity.

As for the 10,000 squere meters of exhibition and the three days of conferences, keep an eye on Euroalert.net Twitter account and to our web, we will bring you the most interesting things we see during the three days of the ICT 2010. For those of you who can't make it to be in Brussels, the hash-tag for the event will be #ict2010eu. And don't forget you can still register for the event if you are able to come to Brussels. Will be great to meet you there!

"Different and curious" Public Contracts of Euroalert.net that are Mentioned on the Article of El País

As all of those who follow us are already aware of, Euroalert.net tries to be very active in the public sector information reuse community in Europe. This is something that has been shown several times on the forums Euroalert.net has attended to talk about its experience in creating value from European public contract information.

For this reason, now, when one of Spain's national newspapers of biggest daily circulation like El País, echoes this phenomenon of Public Administration releasing public data and mentions Euroalert.net among the private initiatives dedicated to give it added value, we really feel very proud because of the recognition. Naiara Galarraga's article talks about the situation of the movement that pursues open data as part of the Open Government initiatives and cites opinions of relevant Spanish people like Alberto Ortiz de Zárate form Basque Government, Jose Manuel Alonso from CTIC Foundation, Aitor García from Asociación Pro Bono Público or Sebastián Muriel General Manager at Red.es, among many others. We had the opportunity to share with them the PSI Meeting 2010 that got European Open Data Community together in Madrid, called by Proyecto Aporta and ePSIPlatform.

So, with the same spirit of free information and data access, and due to the wave of emails received asking us to told them which were the calls for tenders mentioned by the article of El País, here you have a "public contracts' appetizer", some funny and others curious:

• Curious, for instance, is the call for tenders for the supply of berets to the French Army (up to now we don't know who has wined it and which is the total amount, so you will have to pay attention to Euroalert.net ;-)...)
• What is the purpose of the Danish Maersk Oil company with the publication of a public tender about Christmas tree supply is something we really don't know... The question is that not any thing is a Christmas tree..., it seems that the cpv was not right this time, or maybe is that the well-heads are to "decorate" the tree...?
• The UK Government Department for International Development awarded four contracts of supply of condoms to support a cooperation and prevention HIV contagion Program.
• And the jewel of the crown, the contract with the highest value: the award of a contract with a value of 3,359,928,000 GBP by Highways Agency, for hiring of construction works of highways and roads in the UK.

As you all know, more interesting contracts, more business and more opportunities in public tenders market in the European Union, always on the Call for tenders section on Euroalert.net.

Euroalert.net will be again at the Open Days 2010!

Everything is ready! This year we will be also in Brussels to live the 8th European Week of the Regions and Cities, also named the Open Days 2010. The events will be from 4th to 7th October this year and they will be developed under the title “Europe 2020: Competitiveness, co-operation and cohesion for all the regions".

As you could already read on Euroalert.net a couple of weeks ago, registration is now open and the deadline will be on 22nd September, so you can register to any of the 130 events that will take place on the first week of October. Although the organizers, DG REGIO and Committee of the Regions, have estimated to welcome about 6,000 people, you should better register on the events you are interested in asap, vacancies will be covered quickly!

As you know, Euroalert.net follows very close the biggest event of European regions and cities, as we already did in 2006 and in 2008, because this is a great chance to know first-hand what is done all around Europe. The experience of Euroalert.net staff at the Open Days 2009 was really good, because we had the opportunity to attend some very interesting events, like B-Creative, or "Restoring Growth through innovation" within Open Days University. Besides, we also had the opportunity to know a lot of people and exchanging experiences with them.

This year, we will also try to attend the events organized and promoted by members of Euroalert.net community as we did last year at the reception of North East England Office in Brussels, or at the Stockholm Region offices opening. Hope to see you all at the Open Days 2010 in October!

Euroalert participates in PSI Meeting 2010 with the European open data community

As those of you who follow our Twitter channel already know, and as we announced on this blog a while ago, on June 9th we participated in the PSI Meeting 2010. We were gently invited by the organizers, the Aporta project and ePSIPlatform of the European Commission. It was a very interesting event in which we could increase our knowledge and share our experience with reuse of public sector information.

The day was mostly a discussion meeting on PSI reuse from their different perspectives: on its future, its challenges and changes that society and governments should take for their proper development. Our director, Jose Luis Marín, participated as a speaker at the second of the four round tables, sharing Euroalert's experience together with other companies that have also managed to create business models by adding value to data released by the public sector.

We also took this opportunity to announce the launch of our project showmethetenders.net where we collect the successes and failures of Euroalert in several European Union countries while trying to unlock public data on EU tenders. As you know, we are making a considerable effort, to which we invite you to join us, to try to collect this information, primarily available in Official Journals and procurement platforms in reusable formats. By the moment, we have had considerable successes in countries like Ireland and Belgium, where we have had the responsiveness of those responsible: we really appreciate their support and commitment to the community for the reuse of public sector information.

But we have also had very much-talked-about failures like the one that Chris Taggart has nicely described, due to the situation that occurs in the UK about the outsourcing of the management of public data. In these cases, the release of data which are public but managed by private companies with their own economic interests gets complicated, and only strong political support can provide a solution to this issue.

We've also included some very shocking cases as the Spanish Government Procurement Platform or the European Commission itself through the EuropeAid Cooperation Office, which has denied the release of the datasets contracts for development aid!!! Their reasons for this refusal, furthermore, are not strong at all, and of course especially in the latter case it is not consistent at all that the European Commission itself does not bet on leading by being an example in the implementation of the Directive. Especially considering that it is not feasible for small businesses or start-ups to embark on legal proceedings to try to defend a more open position and in line with the Directive, which it seems that can only be obtained when there is a political commitment.

Over 19 addresses of relevant experts coming from public governments (including the European Commission) and platforms, companies that reuse information and trade associations representing their interests and civil society organizations, the main issues, perspectives and initiatives in the world of Open Data were reaped.

First names of the world of open data, such as Javier Hernández Ros, Head of Unit of Access to Information of the European Commission, Chris Taggart, a member of the working group of the Open Knowledge Foundation dedicated to the opening of public sector information in the United Kingdom, Alberto Ortiz de Zárate, director of the service of Citizen's Attention of the Basque Government, from Open Data Euskadi, or Daniel Dietrich, president of the German nonprofit organization Open Data Network, participated in the four round tables.

Thanks to all who attended, those who see the event by the streaming, those who interacted and followed through Twitter contributions... Thank you once again because we can demonstrate that by sharing information and knowledge we all get further.

Euroalert.net launches the new 10ders Product Reports on Public Procurement and helps you exporting to new markets

Last week we announced you the launching of a new set of 10ders Observatory products focused on providing information and data about public procurement and specially adapted to SMEs active on exports. At that moment we already advised you to keep posted as we intended to be launching different Euroalert.net products in the days to come and will be providing you more details.

We are therefore very proud to present you the features of one of the products with a highest demand among those developed by Euroalert.net: the 10ders Customized Product Report on Public Procurement.

In the last two decades the way to internationalise a company and start exporting has changed dramatically and traditional ways of doing it are no longer valid: acting quickly, gathering relevant information, analysing it and directing commercial actions within your Internationalization Plan in the most suitable markets, has become the most necessary elements of a strategy. Although international fairs and commercial missions might still have their role to play, what it is really critical now is to always have more information than your competitors about the characteristics of the market to make the most of any commercial action your export department undergoes.

As export manager in an SME, wouldn't it be interesting to know who's the distributor who has sold the most to governments in your sector in any given market? Wouldn't' you like to know who's your perfect partner to provide the installation or maintenance services for your product? Or maybe knowing the public bodies which have been the most active in purchasing your product or service in any market? What about knowing who's your major competitor in one particular market and analyse whether it is accessible in this moment?

These questions and many more have now answer thanks to 10ders Product Reports on Public Procurement from 10ders Observatory which offer you the information and listings of the most active economic actors and contracting public authorities which have purchased the most your products and services by publishing tender announcements.

Only with a few clicks and for only 35 €, a really very accessible cost for any company no matter its dimension, you will have your own customized report in your e-mail.

They are very simple to request: you only need to follow the indications to buy your 10ders Customized Product Report in Public Procurement from 10ders Observatory at the Euroalert.net on-line store. First, you need to select the country or countries you want to analyse with the report, and then you describe your product or service. If your already know the cpv codes which define your product just indicate them but if you don't, don't worry, with the 10ders Product Reports in Public Procurement special launching offer, you only need to describe them and we will define the codes for you with no extra cost.

And remember that the more reports you ask in one same order, the more you will save in each of them: 10 product reports in public procurement will only cost 290 €, and you will save 15% in each of them.

If you have any question or wish to make any suggestion that will help us to improve this new service, you only need to send us an email to TenderReports@euroalert.net and we will answer all your questions.

Besides, now you can also benefit from the 10ders Product Report Special Launching Offer and get you customized reports in the very best conditions! Aren't you trying?

Euroalert.net universalizes market intelligence in international tendering and brings it closer to SMEs

Over the past months, access of SMEs to public procurement has jumped to the forefront of Government agendas in almost all EU countries. In several occasions the Commission has shown its determination to support smaller companies in their access to public procurement market, many strategies and documents have been drawn up in this regard, a European code of best practices facilitating access by SMEs to Public Procurement Contracts was published in June 2008, Commissioners have made declarations on this issue... All this is fine, but what companies really need are facts, actions and instruments to achieve the real opportunities that public procurement provide to SMEs.

From Euroalert.net team we have gradually reinforced a conviction we already had when started in all this project: the huge amount of data which is available and waiting to be used by companies of any size who aim at having an international presence...

The participation of Euroalert.net in various forums related to EU Public Procurement, as well as company's consulting activities with firms operating in international tendering or our intervention in events organized by our partners in their sectors of interest have confirmed our conviction.

Euroalert.net already provided you with tools to publish in your website or Intranet procurement notices or awards which represent real business opportunities for your business. Now, with 10ders Observatory you will have a full set of information tools on public procurement and the necessary data to plan your strategy on international tendering markets and bid for public contracts, to adapt your plan of internationalization and to analyse the best way to access the opportunities offered by the public sector in the European Union. Our goal is to provide business support organizations as well as companies with the best tools tailored to each of their needs.

One product for each need, so you can pick only what you really need in order to get maximum value at the minimum cost: this is our goal. A purpose which becomes particularly important in the current economic scenario.

• If you want macro statistics to evaluate the performance of your sector in different markets, what you need are the 10ders Trends Statistical Series on Public Procurement adapted to your targeted sectors
• If what you want is the list of the main economic operators in your area of interest, either awarded companies or contracting authorities, then you are looking for 10ders Product Reports on Public Procurement
• If you already know which are the markets you will focus on and you want to be informed about the business opportunities, announcements or awards that are coming up in them, then what you need are the 10ders Alerts on Public Procurement
• But if, before all this, the first thing you need is to know how your product or service is defined in public procurement contracts (cpv), then you will probably need 10ders Code Advice on Public Procurement to help you identify the code your product or service is defined by and take advantage of other information tools

We will be soon presenting you all these products step by step, as well as all those which will be developed to complete the series of 10ders Observatory products. Remember that each one of them is a separate product, so that you can make up your own "à la carte" public procurement information system. Also, like all Euroalert.net products, 10ders Observatory is designed to be accessible to small companies and organizations, with products which are all quite cost-effective.

10ders Observatory is ready to work with you and help you to find the best way to maximize your sales abroad, you just have to send us an email to info@euroalert.net and we will contact you.

Euroalert.net and 10ders Observatory provide you with information and data about international public procurement opportunities, then is your turn to use them to do business and make money.

The EU policies and EU funding, described in Euroalert

As all those who follow us already know, Euroalert.net is a primary source for keeping abreast of developments in EU funding regarding to both calls for proposals and European programmes, as we publish daily all information concerning the policies adopted by the EU in our EU Funding section.

To finance these policies, the Union relies on EU Programmes and Initiatives that are later developed in the form of calls for proposals. Euroalert has been maintaining and publishing for more than ten years a comprehensive database in which you can find over 400 European Programmes and Initiatives published since 1972 and over 1,500 calls for proposals. In addition, we are continually updating the quality of such contents.

Well, besides putting these tools for searching funding opportunities at your disposal, in Euroalert we want to improve our section of EU funding and so we have published new pages on which we explain in detail the ins and outs of EU funding: where it comes from, how it is managed, to which areas it is addressed...

• On the one hand EU funding sources explains where the EU obtains the necessary funding to develop its policies, what it does spends these funds on, and how it develops its budget.
• In addition, we dedicate a space to programmes and initiatives that fund the policies of the European Union, and to explain it, you can find four groups of programmes: instruments of cohesion and regional development, instruments of common agricultural and fisheries policy instruments, cross-border cooperation programmes, transnational and interregional and other instruments or policies.
• Finally, the section Calls for proposals describes how these funding opportunities generated for the development and implementation of the various community policies are disseminated.
  
  

Moreover, if you want to know which Euroalert category covers a singular policy of the EU, or the policies covered by each category, you can consult the table that we have developed and which is also available along with a description of EU policies, in the same Euroalert EU Funding section.

Thus, Euroalert keeps on moving its mission of becoming an authority on electronic information about the EU, joining in a single source all the relevant information on EU funding. Soon, we will announce a major step in this line that we are preparing for the whole Euroalert community.

Euroalert will participate in the PSI Meeting 2010, organized by Proyecto Aporta and ePSIplatform

Lately we have announced you that Euroalert has been participating in several events and conferences where we share our experience and learn from our collegues. And we love it.

Our next participation will be in June, when the director of Gateway SCS, José Luis Marín, will be one of the speakers at the PSI Meeting 2010 "Realising the value of Public Sector Information", a meeting aimed to evaluate the economic and social benefits of the policies for the reuse of public sector information.

Invited by the organizers of the event, ePSI Platform (European Public Sector Information Platform) and Proyecto Aporta, our director will participate in the second round table, entitled "Turning the reuse of public sector information into new business models and innovative services", where he will contribute with the Euroalert experience at creating a business model which daily offers you the best content about the European Union, adding value to public sector information: call for proposals for funding projects, daily news about EU and tenders in european countries.

You can already consult the draft agenda of "PSI Meeting 2010" and, though the names have not been made public yet, we can tell you that several high profile speakers representing very high-level institutions in the field of Open Data have confirmed their assistance. The other three round tables are entitled:

• Overview of Europe’s Information Society Strategies: Best practices in policies to release the economic potential of PSI re-use.
• Measuring the economic potential of PSI re-use
• Social Value of PSI

The Proyecto Aporta, under the framework of Plan Avanza, aims to contribute to place Spain in the European vanguard in terms of reuse of public sector information. To this end, from the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade, Aporta promotes a culture of reuse of information in the field of public administration. For its part, the ePSIplatform, funded by the eContentPlus programme of the European Commission, aims to stimulate the action, to report and to monitor progress towards a stronger and more transparent environment for the growth of national and European reuse markets.

Recently we have been announcing events, initiatives and other activities where Euroalert.net has shared its experience and knowledge, as our participation in FICOD 2009, contributions to the community of open data, such as the publication of data on the British public bodies with notices in the OJEU, or as a case study in terms of business model, as happened with the book Web 2.0. The Business Model with the chapter "Doing business by selling free services", focusing on Euroalert.

The last time was a few months ago when Euroalert participated in the seminar "Smart construction: doing business in the Netherlands", organized by Enterprise Ireland, where we contributed with our experience in tendering and business opportunities with the public sector across the European Union.

You can already register to attend the event in Proyecto Aporta website. We remind you that the meeting will be at the headquarters of the Secretariat of State for Telecommunications and Information Society of the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade, at 41, Capitán Haya street, Madrid, on June 8 from 8.30 am . See you there!!

Euroalert.net at the forum of the debate on public procurement and innovation

When it comes to public procurement and innovation, a lot of questions do arise. In order to tackle them, more than 150 experts got together in Brussels during two days, taking part at the Conference "Promoting Innovation Through Public Procurement: Best Practice and Networking" organized by the Directorate General for Industry and Entrepreneurship of the European Commission on March 23rd and 24th.

As we already posted about a couple of weeks ago, Euroalert.net has had the opportunity to take part in the Conference and debate on procurement and innovation. It has been a very good opportunity for us to know better about the main issues brought on tendering and innovation and which are the actual needs and concerns of the main actors involved, whether they are European public procurers, companies or organisations in charge for their counselling such as EEN members, experts, decision and policy makers, or information services on tendering opportunities with public sector like Euroalert.net

On the introduction of the session Deputy Director General DG Enterprise & Industry, Madame Françoise Le Bail, already addressed some the main challenges faced by the European Union in promoting innovation through public procurement in order to ensure better public services, supporting innovation for companies and levering public purchasing.

The European Commission has set the target to dedicate 1% of the total amount of commercial opportunities channelled through public tendering in the EU to public procurement of innovation, which represents around 20B€ per year. This target might seem "modest" when compared with US target of around 15% or the even higher target of 40% set by China but everybody agreed this is an important step and a good beginning in the path to be taken.

Issues such as public contracting authorities' aversion to risk when facing procurement of innovation, their responsibility in those processes when something goes wrong, legal issues, fragmentation of demand or issues related to IP rights on procurement of innovation were some of the interesting ideas which came up at the Conference.

Pre-commercial Procurement was one of the main issues of the Conference, as a way to stimulate public tendering of innovation, together with Green Public Procurement, e-Procurement, social considerations, variants or technical dialogue in public procurement.

In relation to PCP, Lieve Bos from DG INFSO made an overview of the support mechanism for PCP put forward by the Commission, with some projects which are currently in place such as P3ITS, PreCo financed under Call 4 of the ICT FP7 Work Programme for 2009, RAPIDE or MKW, as well as the future launch of 2010 Calls for further EC support for PCP networks and cross-border pilots.

The Conference was also the occasion for networking between the delegates, who had the opportunity to share best practices on public procurement and present their projects. Apart from PCP, some other networks and projects were present at the Conference such as euroPROC, SCI-Network, LCB Healthcare Network, ENPROTEX, APOLLON, Buy Smart, PRO-EE, Save Energy, Smart SPP, or the Project "Urbain-Loi" street from the DG OIB.


One of the things which was particularly interesting for Euroalert.net was the possibility to have a first hand point of view about what are the main issues and concerns companies, and specially SMEs, face when trying to access public procurement market, either locally or at EU level.

Representatives from different Enterprise Europe Network partners described to the delegates an overview of such issues, depicting a pan-European view coming from partners from a very varied origins representing their EEN branches such as ACC1O Competitivitat per l'empresa, the Grenoble Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Bayern Innovativ, Chamber of Commerce of Finland, ABZ Bayern, City of Bradford, Promofirenze, EISC Southampton, Cardiff University or Berlin Partner.

As you can see, there were a lot of interesting networks and projects represented, and hope we haven't missed any of them..., but if it is the case, just let us know!

One of the main concerns, specially when talking about SMEs and their access to public procurement, was related to below EU thresholds tendering, where we got to know more about some very interesting initiatives such as PIANOo, ETIS or ALPPS. As some of you already know, one of Euroalert challenges now is offering to all our clients, partners and subscribers the high quality information and tools already available for EU procurement, also for below EU thresholds tendering.

Any tip or help in identifying public sources of tenders and PSI contents susceptible to be re-used will be very welcomed, as Euroalert.net is highly involved in initiatives related to Open Data and the re-use of PSI specifically in the field of public procurement.

It has been a very valuable forum for Euroalert.net as we have been able to know more about the needs of agencies, organisations and companies in their access to public procurement. As you all know Euroalert offers an innovative and cost-effective gateway to European public procurement by publishing all the calls for tenders, awards and other announcements published by the OJEU and the possibility to publish any Euroalert.net content in any other website.

But Euroalert.net and its sister brand 10ders Observatory has also developed a full set of tools which allow companies and specially SMEs to get access to cost-effective high quality market-intelligence reports about public procurement to improve their performance in this highly competitive market. This kind of fora will help us in knowing better about the needs and keeping on developing always more powerful Euroalert.net tools on public procurement information.

Thanks again to DG Industry & Entrepreneurship and specially to all the people in the organization of the Conference for giving us this opportunity to take part in this successful event!

As a souvenir of the Conference, here are a few pics of the event. Lot of work in two days! Good luck in their projects to all participants and hope to see you all in a future occasion!



Note: updated April 21st. Presentations already available at EC Enterprise website.

Euroalert.net gets ready for the changes in the new TED website

As you all know Euroalert.net publishes and distributes a set of different information products related to public procurement announcements from European Union countries which are published in the OJEU. This means that we follow closely any change made by the Office of Publications of the European Union regarding the structure and characteristics of the publication of these public procurement notices.


A few changes, which can probably be considered as some of the most relevant ones affecting public tendering information and publication in recent times, will take place in the coming days: the new TED website will be available from March 16th, changing its interface and some of its functionalities. As we all know big changes sometimes cause some inconveniences to users, as it will be the case with the loss of saved search profiles for TED users, which will have to be saved and redefined in the new system once the new TED site is launched.

Since the announcement of the migration a couple of months ago, we started working to ensure that as far as possible any of Euroalert.net users and subscribers will be affected by the changes to be introduced in TED website. This changes will restructure essential elements such as NUTS codes and some other characteristics for filtering announcement and notices.

One of the key values of the services provided by Euroalert.net is being able to prepare ourselves and ensure a completely transparent transition for our customers so that the system remains up and running and their functionalities are still the same from the very first day on all our services: 10ders observatory, with data mining services on information from public markets, Euroalert widgets for the automatic publication of procurement notices in the web of our subscribers and web services for content delivery.

Since we started offering business opportunities in the EU public procurement market within the Euroalert.net website there has already been some relevant changes in TED structure which have been immediately assimilated by Euroalert.net, always ensuring the best service for our customers and subscribers. Not so long ago, this was the case for the update of cpv codes in 2008. One of our main commitments is to be prepared to offer to those who rely on Euroalert.net the best possible service.

We will continue keeping you up to the date with these changes and making sure that Euroalert.net always provides you with the best information services on EU public procurement in the most reliable way and at very cost-effective prices thanks to our innovative search technology.

Euroalert and public procurement, in Brussels

Once more, we are proud to announce another trip of the Euroalert.net crew. We knew that Brussels is missing us and, so, we are coming back this month.

This time, the reason of our expedition is attending to the conference “Promoting Innovation Through Public Procurement: Best Practice and Networking”, which, for us, is an excellent opportunity to work in the networking and exchanging of best practice among public procurers, policy makers and other relevant stakeholders.

The conference, organized by the Directorate General for Industry and Entrepreneurship of the European Commission, will take place at Centre Albert Borschette (Rue Froissart 36, 1040 Brussels) on 23rd and 24th March. It aims to promote a connected community of stakeholders and identify possible joint actions.

The specific objectives of the meeting are:

• To clarify the relationships between networks and stakeholders (existing ones and new ones) that can facilitate or promote public procurement of innovations: innovation agencies, Enterprise Europe Network partners, experts, industry, procuring facilitators.
• To identify what tools are best used to help these people and where there is potential for joint actions.

We are really looking forward to attending this conference, as we will be learning and sharing experiences about public procurement, a field where Euroalert.net claims some expertise. Participating in the most relevant forums and networking with the most outstanding stakeholders shows how Euroalert keeps its commitment to improve its excellence and knowledge about public procurement opportunities in the European Union.

This way, Euroalert can provide the best and most innovative tools about tendering information in the European Union for companies and organizations like Chambers of Commerce, Local Development Agencies, Trade Associations and Agencies for the promotion of exports.

As we always say to you, we will be in Brussels from Monday 22nd until Thursday 25th, so if you want to meet us those days, just drop us an email to info@euroalert.net, and we will try to arrange a meeting there.

See you in Brussels!!!

A Dutch experience in Dublin

Some weeks ago we announced you that José Luis Marín, our CEO, was visiting Dublin to participate in the seminar "Smart Construction: Doing bussiness in the Netherlands" organized by Enterprise Ireland, the Government's agency for the development and promotion of Irish business sector.

The seminar has taken place at Enterprise Ireland HQ in Dublin, on Tuesday 23rd February morning. This event is one of the activities organized for the Ireland Construct community, created with the objective to help Irish construction companies achieve strong positions in global market, and in this case it has focused on the Dutch Construction industry. About 35 companies have attended to the seminar and the 1-to-1 meetings that have been organized afterwards with the experts who have spoken previously, in order to help the Irish companies get a better understanding of the available opportunities .

José Luis, our CEO, has shared Euroalert.net knowledge and expertise in the public procurement information services field. He has shown the attendees the possibilities of Euroalert.net in helping individual SMEs across the European Union, to compete with biggest companies, by providing more accurate, and fastest information on tenders in Europe or with market intelligence tools on public procurement opportunities like 10ders Observatory.

In his presentation "Digging business leads out of the internet", Mr. Marín has highlighted that public procurement is an affordable way to export for SMEs. Many companies were very interested in the fact that the levelling factor of the web brings more cost-effective tools to market intelligence on public procurement, like the ones Euroalert provides: the possibility of monitoring the stream of expenditure for their specific products or services or getting rankings for successful bidders in order to look for potential agreements or subcontracting opportunities, can be cheaper through 10ders observatory, than traditional traditional market researches. Here you can check and download the full presentation:
Digging business leads out of the internet
José Luis Marín has shared the panel with several experts of the Dutch construction sector:

• Bas van der Veen, Professor at Innovative Entrepreneurship in Construction at Saxion University, who presented "The future of the Construction Industry in the Netherlands" and provided lots of figures and facts about what is going to happen in Dutch construction market during the next 30 years.
• Pieter van Boom, Managing Director at Bartels consulting engineers,who spoke about "Partnering opportunities – the realities in the Dutch market" and pointed out that "cooperation and collaboration is in Dutch people DNA", which represents a great opportunity for foreign companies with innovative products .
• Peter van de Boogaard, owner of NewCon Vastgoed bv, who shared "The expectations of a Dutch buyer in the Construction industry", and made great description about particularities like the importance of sectors like the student housing in The Netherlands.
• Martin Bourgonje, from Synergy Management, who contributed with "Doing Business in the Netherlands – the small print", contributed with several tips and legal facts about how to establish a company in The Netherlands.
  

It has been a very exciting experience for us, and, as always, another success for all the Euroalert.net community. Thanks to all of you, every day we are getting farther and farther, proving organizations and companies in Europe better and improved innovative services.

10ders Observatory: increase in the number of contracts awarded by EuropeAid in the third quarter of 2009, compared to the drop in tender notices

Over the past few weeks, our colleagues of 10ders Observatory have been providing us with a series of data related to the evolution of public procurement in all Member States of the European Union.

In the last occasion 10ders Observatory data referred to the sharp increase in the value of contracts awarded in the EU in the third quarter of 2009, now they bring us a range of data relating to procurement announcements aimed at the conclusion of contracts in the field of External Cooperation Programmes, published by EuropeAid in the OJEU in the third quarter of 2009.

According to the estimates of 10ders Observatory, the number of notices published by EuropeAid in the third quarter of 2009 decreased slightly compared to the previous quarter (- 1.16%), a decrease which is significantly higher when considering data from the same quarter of 2008 (-14.74%).

However, this downward trend is not recorded in all types of public notices published by EuropeAid in the Official Journal of the European Union. The data about the evolution of contracts and procurement opportunities issued by EuropeAid is quite different depending on the successive stages of the procurement process.

For example, in the case of forecasts, the number of notices published in the OJEU has fallen sharply over the previous quarter (-27.90%), a decline which has been less steep in the case of notices (-16.59%). However, EuropeAid contract awards have increased dramatically in the third quarter of 2009, showing an increase of 107.58% over the same data in the previous quarter.

Comparing these data with the same quarter of 2008, there are decreases in all types of announcements issued by EuropeAid, either in the number of forecasts (-2.33%), the number of tender notices (- 23,63%) or the number of the awarded contracts published in the OJEU, which in this case reflects a decline in terms of the award notices published during the same period of the years 2009 and 2008 (-16.97%).

Considering the proportion of notices published by EuropeAid in the OJEU in relation to each type of document issued during the procurement process, whether they are forecasts, procurement notices, additional information or contract awards, it seems that public procurement notices, which in the third quarter of 2009 accounted for 28%, in the second quarter amounted to 39% of total announcements, while in the case of awards, they accounted nearly 11% of the total in the second quarter compared to 23% in the third quarter of 2009.

Tender notices and additional informations in the third quarter of 2009 represented 30% and 18% respectively, and have minor differences with data from the second quarter, which accounted for 36% in the case of tender notices and for 14% in the case of additional informations.



In addition to these data, it is interesting to study 10ders Observatory estimates regarding the distribution of the announcements published by EuropeAid in the OJEU depending on the type of contract. In this case, it should be noted that in all types of announcements, whether forecasts, tender notices or awards, the ones which record higher contracting figures and publication in the OJEU within the procurement procedures issued by EuropeAid are the announcements related to service contracts, since in the third quarter of 2009 they accounted for more than 50% of the announcements in all cases (55.36%, 65.19% and 63.5% respectively).

This seems to be a trend that can be constantly observed throughout all periods, as announcements for contracting services exceeded 50% in all cases, except in the third quarter of 2008, in which they were a little bit less, accounting for 49.37% of the total. Indeed, in the third quarter of 2008 the distribution was balanced between supply and service contracts, representing 44.3% and 49.37% respectively, while the remaining 6.33% corresponded to works contracts.

It was noted at the beginning of this post that a general decline in the data relating to forecasts was observed during this period. However, the breakdown by type of contract shows the opposite trend in one of the three types of contracts, since there has been an increase in the forecasts announcements for works contracts published by EuropeAid for the third quarter of 2009, both in comparison with the previous quarter, registering an increase of 20%, and with the same quarter of 2008, towards which the announcements simply triple.

Once again we hope the data sets our colleagues of 10ders Observatory have prepared have been useful for you, and we remind you that if you are interested in obtaining specific data for your activities, you can contact them via info@euroalert.net.

This month Euroalert.net will be in Dublin sharing its experience at Enterprise Ireland seminar

One of the things Euroalert.net enjoys the most, is sharing its knowledge and savoir-faire with all the Community, and that's what we are doing again. After some events last year, such as the participation in FICOD 2009, the contribution to the open-data community such as the release of data about the UK public bodies which publish procurement announcements in the OJEU, or new features like the initiative 10ders Observatory, which offers some free insights on public procurement in the EU, Euroalert.net is now travelling to Ireland.

Enterprise Ireland, the Government's agency for the development and promotion of Irish business sector, with whom Euroalert.net is proud to be collaborating, has kindly invited Gateway SCS CEO, José Luis Marín, to be one of the panellists in a seminar organized by EI which is taking place in Dublin on February 23rd 2010. There, we will try to contribute with Euroalert.net expertise in tenders and public procurement contracts as well as project funding opportunities across the European Union.

For over the past months, Enterprise Ireland, has been promoting Ireland Construct, a new initiative which gathers some of the leading Irish construction companies with the objective to help them to achieve strong positions in global markets. For that purpose, Enterprise Ireland is bringing them some useful information and tools to facilitate this target, such as the advice of qualified experts, or specific events like the one we will be participating. Within this framework, this seminar aims to help these companies to acquire better knowledge about the Dutch construction sector.

The companies to which this seminar is addressed are trying to break into the Dutch construction market, and so José Luis Marín will present them Euroalert.net recommendations for "Digging business leads out of the internet", transmitting our know-how in getting the most out of information systems and social networking, and giving some clues that might help to access commercial opportunities in the Dutch construction sector.

We must say that we are really proud of this new opportunity to contribute to the community. After our visit to Ireland you will all have access to the presentation made at Enterprise Ireland HQ in Dublin, here, in Euroalert.net site. Of course, if you want to meet us in Dublin, just drop us an email to info@euroalert.net, and we will try to arrange a meeting there.

10ders Observatory: Strong increase in the total value of contracts awarded in the EU during the third quarter of 2009

According to the estimates of "10ders Observatory, when compared to the same quarter of 2008, the European Union countries (EUR27) ended the third quarter of 2009 with an important growth (+35.81%) in the total value of contracts awarded which are above EU procurement thresholds and must be published in the OJEU.

This data reinforces the trend we announced you a few weeks ago regarding the increase of over 13% in the number of contracts issued and awarded at European level in the 27 European Union countries in relation to the third quarter of 2008.

However, as in the map of the evolution of the awarded contracts that 10ders Observatory released a couple of weeks ago, the differences between countries and types of contracts are also very significant and, therefore, so is the variation of public money allocated through competitive bidding in contracts whose value is above EU procurement thresholds.

For example, the strong growth shown in the chart is largely attributable to the high increase of the total value of service contracts awarded (+58.52%), which has been rising throughout 2009, mostly due to public resources channelled to stimulate economic recovery. The total economic value of contracts awarded for supplies (+20.14%) and public works (+12.44%) has also grown over the third quarter of 2008, but much less.

By countries, the situation is very diverse, showing very high increases, such as the experienced by the UK (+77.03%) in all types of contracts, by Belgium (+135.09%) mainly in public works, or by the Netherlands (+85.76%) and Sweden (+93.89%) with an important increase in service contracts awarded.

EUR16 growth has been much lower (+9.96%) than the increase within EUR27 (+35.81%), since neither Sweden nor the UK add their strong growth figures to this group, but also because of the large drop in the economic value of public contracts awarded in countries like Spain (-30.15%), Ireland (-33.06%) and Italy (-14.73%).

When transferring all these data to a map, the increases of public money awarded in contracts whose value is above community thresholds and were published in the OJEU in the third quarter of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008, show an interesting insight into the evolution of public spending directly injected into contracts awarded through competitive bidding with companies, from which you can surely draw interesting conclusions:



As in previous occasions, we hope this article that our colleagues at "10ders Observatory" have prepared for Euroalert.net blog, will give you some valuable information. If you need any more detailed data sets for your own analysis, you can contact them at info@euroalert.net.

PS: Very soon, we will be publishing our estimate compared with the evolution of European Union GDP by 2009.