What is public procurement?

Public procurement is the process used by municipalities and other institutions to buy goods, services and works which enable them to deliver their activities.

AT URBACT we see procurement as a strategic lever that cities can use to address the economic, social and environmental challenges they face.

We think procurement could be used to create jobs and apprenticeships, to develop workers skills and reduce carbon emissions. We call this strategic procurement.

Click here to have more information about the impacts of Covid-19 on public procurement practices in Europe.

How does URBACT supports cities to improve their procurement strategies?

In 2015, the work of the PROCURE network paved the way for a future generation of URBACT cities eager to enhance their procurement processes. The core learning from the network was that procurement has to be viewed as a cycle. We called this process “the Cycle of Procurement”.

In 2018, the Making Spend Matter Transfer Network started working on transferring one of the key steps of the cycle called Spend Analysis across seven cities.

Since 2017, URBACT and the City of Preston have been contributing to the Urban Agenda Partnership on Public Procurement pushing forward public procurement as a strategic driver to help public authorities solve challenges they are dealing with, be they social, economic or environmental. 

URBACT Online Course on Strategic Procurement

About the course

Drawing upon the activities of Procure and Making Spend Matter's cities, URBACT has developed a free online course to equip cities with the knowledge and tools required to embed social and environmental criteria into the process of public procurement and to progress strategic procurement.

Who is this course for?

This free and online training is targeted at anyone with an interest in procurement and changing the way it is undertaken in cities. You could be a mayor or politician, a civil servant working in strategy or procurement department, or working in urban and economic development, or someone completely different and willing to learn! 

Course structure

The first ‘learning cycle’ of URBACT’s online course was a great success! More than 600 registered participants from over 40 countries and 150 cities across the world registered for it.

The course comprises of seven training modules and accompanying city case-studies covering the procurement cycle. Everything is available at the click of a button below!

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