Study on "Strategic use of public procurement in promoting green, social and innovation policies". Final Report

The overall objective of this study was to take stock of experiences in integrating green, social and innovation considerations in public procurement policy, processes and practices in 10 selected Member States (MS), namely Austria, France, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. More specifically, the study aims to assemble a comprehensive picture of the current strategic public procurement policies and practices in place, estimate the magnitude of strategic public procurement in those MS, and propose measures to further develop the use of strategic public procurementEl objetivo general de este estudio era hacer un balance de las experiencias en la integración de consideraciones ecológicas, sociales y de innovación en las políticas, procesos y prácticas de contratación pública en 10 Estados miembros seleccionados, a saber, Austria, Francia, Letonia, Países Bajos, Polonia, Portugal, Eslovaquia, España, Suecia y el Reino Unido. Más específicamente, el estudio tiene como objetivo reunir una imagen completa de las actuales políticas y prácticas de compra pública estratégica en vigor, estimar la magnitud de la compra pública estratégica en esos Estados Miembros y proponer medidas para desarrollar aún más el uso de la compra pública estratégica

Contextualising mainstreaming of disaster resilience concepts in the construction process

Purpose: Construction industry and the built environment professions play an important role in contributing to society’s improved resilience. It is therefore important to improve their knowledge base to strengthen their capacities. This paper aims to identify gaps in the knowledge base of construction professionals that are undermining their ability to contribute to the development of a more disaster resilient society. The paper also provides a series of recommendations to key actors in the built environment on how to more effectively mainstream disaster resilience in the construction process. Design/methodology/approach: The paper reports the findings of 87 stakeholder interviews with: national and local government organisations; the community; non-governmental organisations, international non-governmental organisation and other international agencies; academia and research organisations; and the private sector, which were supplemented by a comprehensive analysis of key policies related to disaster resilience and management. The findings were validated using focus group discussions that were conducted as part of six organised stakeholder workshops. Findings: The primary and secondary data generated a long list of needs and skills. Finally, the identified needs and skills were combined “like-for-like” to produce broader knowledge gaps. Some of the key knowledge gaps identified are: governance, legal frameworks and compliance; business continuity management; disaster response; contracts and procurement; resilience technologies, engineering and infrastructure; knowledge management; social and cultural awareness; sustainability and resilience; ethics and human rights; innovative financing mechanisms; multi stakeholder approach, inclusion and empowerment; post disaster project management; and multi hazard risk assessment. The study also identifies a series of recommendations to key actors in the built environment on how to more effectively mainstream disaster resilience in the construction process. The recommendations are set out in five key themes: education, policy, practice, research and cross-cutting. Research limitations/implications: This study is part of an EU funded research project that is seeking to develop innovative and timely professional education that will update the knowledge and skills of construction professionals in the industry and enable them to contribute more effectively to disaster resilience building efforts. Originality/value: The paper provides an extensive analysis of the gaps in the knowledge base of construction professionals that are undermining their ability to contribute to the development of a more disaster resilient society. Accordingly, the paper recommends major changes in construction education, research, policy and practice with respect to mainstreaming disaster resilience within the construction process

Innovation Strategies and Productivity in the Polish Services Sector in the Light of CIS 2008

Industry - and firm-level research into both innovations and productivity has long been limited to manufacturing. With this paper, we aim to contribute to the stream of literature that aims at extending the scope of such investigations to the services industry. To this end we analyze the innovation strategies in several service sectors in Poland in 2008 and examine their relationship to productivity. Our results show that service firms differ considerably in their innovation strategies, but that most of those strategies lead to productivity gains

Flash Eurobarometer 90 (EOS Managers 23 - Dialogue with Business)

State of information of European companies on the transnational domestic trade. Topics: Sufficient information and support on the increase of business activities in the European domestic market; access to information on the rules and regulations in the e-commerce sector; sufficient information on the participation in public tendering; company procedure when faced with difficulties in business in other EU-countries: filing complaints to local or national authorities, lawyers, national ombudsman, European Commission or European Parliament, relying on contact points belonging to the domestic market network; knowledge of the internet site “One stop shop for Business” created by the European Commission in scope of the “Dialogue with Business”; consultation of the website; knowledge of the meaning of the CE Marking: knowledge of the authorities that undertake the registration of a European brand label, knowledge of the jurisdictions of value added tax (VAT); observation of company interests from the EU’s perspective. Demography: Position of the interviewee in the company; sector; company size; annual turnover.Informiertheit europäischer Unternehmen über den grenzüberschreitenden Binnenhandel. Themen: Ausreichende Informationen und Unterstützung zur Steigerung der Geschäftstätigkeiten auf dem europäischen Binnenmarkt; Zugang zu Informationen über Regeln und Vorschriften im Bereich e-commerce; ausreichende Informationen über die Teilnahme an öffentlichen Ausschreibungen; Vorgehensweise des Unternehmens bei Behinderungen der Geschäftstätigkeit in anderen EU-Ländern: Beschwerde bei lokaler oder nationaler Behörde einlegen, Rechtsanwalt, nationale Schiedsstelle, Europäische Kommission oder Europa-Parlament einschalten, Zurückgreifen auf Anlaufstellen des Netzwerks im Binnenmarkt; Kenntnis der von der Europäischen Kommission im Rahmen des ´Dialogue with Business´ ins Leben gerufenen Internetseite ´One stop shop for Business´; Konsultation der Website; Kenntnis der Bedeutung der CE-Kennzeichnung: Kenntnis der Behörde, die die Registrierung eines europäischen Markenzeichens vornimmt; Kenntnis über die Zuständigkeiten bei der Umsatzsteuerdeklarierung (VAT); Beachtung der Interessen der Unternehmen von Seiten der EU. Demographie: Stellung des Befragten im Unternehmen; Branche; Betriebsgröße; Gesamtumsatz des Unternehmens

Informing Science InSITE - "Where Parallels Intersect" June 2003 Paper Accepted as a Best Paper

On information markets, many suppliers and buyers of information goods exchange values. Some of these goods are data, whose value is created in buyer interactions with data sources. These interactions are enabled by data market services (DMS). DMS give access to one or several data sources. The major problems with the creation of information value in these contexts are (1) the quality of information retrievals and related queries, and (2) the complexity of matching information needs and supplies when different semantics are used by source systems and information buyers. This study reports about a prototype DMS (called CIRBA), which employs an ontology-based information retrieval system to solve semantic problems for a DMS. The DMS quality is tested in an experiment to assess its quality from a user perspective against a traditional data warehouse (with SQL) solution. The CIRBA solution gave substantially higher user satisfaction than the data warehouse alternative