The European Commission wants to stimulate innovation in Europe.

A promising potential instrument is the use of open standards in public procurement. The Commission has initiated the STEPPIN project to find practical approaches to use this instrument and to disseminate them to procurement officers and organisations in the Member States.

Discussion on the objectives of STEPPIN project has been held at the occasion of the second Expert Meeting in Aachen on 10 July 2007.

The meeting

The Forschungsinstitut für Rationalisierung (FIR) (Aachen, Germany) has carried out a survey to analyse the coherence between the use of standards and procurement processes in terms of identifying best practice. Public procurement agencies as well as private companies were consulted. This survey was based on the theoretical research of Prof. Knut Blind into the use of Standards in Public Procurement and the potential effect on the stimulation of innovation. This so called Best Theory was presented in our first STEPPIN expert meeting on the 7th of May in Berlin. The FIR has now resented the results of its survey. They tried to find so called best practise cases and assess the effects on innovation.

The objective of this workshop was to reach consensus with the participating experts on what best practice is. An important issue of the workshop has been to determine the grow path of best practice, as the level of current best practice may not be significant, while as a result of the project the level might and should increase in the coming years.


Main topics adressed

Results of interviews with tendering organisations
Results of interviews with applying companies on the market side about their experiences;
What kind of Best Practice does exist?
What are the potential benefits of innovation for purchasers and their organisations?
How do purchasers stimulate innovation, do they make use of standards?

Further info:  Mr Joep Frijdal, Coordinator of STEPPIN - 'frijdal@belmont.nl'