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.