Global Revolution VI
Global Revolution VI, 24 and 25 June 2013
With around 300 delegates and speakers from over 35 countries, the conference "Public Procurement: Global Revolution VI "held at Nottingham on 24 and 25 June 2013 involved an impressive array of public procurement experts and talent, including representatives from most of the major international institutions working in public procurement.
The delegates
The continuing revolution in the field of international public procurement law enabled us to devote the two plenary sessions to the recent proposed changes to the EU regime still underway at the time of the conference (including speakers who arrived from the negotiations), and to the still recent changes at the level of the World Trade Organization's GPA, UNCITRAL and the multilateral development banks, as well as to the evolving policy changes at the heart of the World Bank.
Our three packed workshop streams picked up on the two plenary sessions, namely EU reform and international perspectives. In addition to the up to the minute discussion of the current EU reform package, the EU workshop stream also looked at the recent changes in European defence procurement and provided some more focused sessions on knotty issues connected the operation of the EU system, including the application of award criteria, ineffectiveness of contracts, changes to concluded contracts and the use of procurement as a potential weapon in trade wars.
In the international stream, we were able to consider the very recent changes in the major international regulatory systems such as the GPA, the UNCITRAL Model Law, the multilateral development banks, notably the World Bank, as well as aid effectiveness more generally in the context of procurement. We looked at sectors such as international defence, regions such as sub-Sarahan Africa and specific country experiences including those of fragile states.
In another workshop stream, we focused on public procurement in practice. This included for the first time focusing on procurement by the European institutions themselves and on professionalizing procurement. There were workshops dedicated to competition and corruption issues in procurement and a series of workshops dedicated to the practical implementation of framework agreements and electronic procurement tools.
Organisation and collaborators
The conference was organized by the Public Procurement Research Group (PPRG) at The University of Nottingham and again sponsored by Achilles Information Limited. The conference was supported by a number of collaborators, including:
- the African Public Procurement Regulation Research Unit (South Africa)
- the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (UK)
- Copenhagen Business School (Denmark)
- Crown Agents (UK)
- Forum Vergabe (Germany)
- the George Washington University School of Law (US)
- the Procurement Lawyers’ Association (UK)
- Swansea University (UK)
- University of Copenhagen (Denmark)
- the World Trade Organization
We were also fortunate this time around having the benefit of brand new and modern facilities on campus in the form of the East Midlands Conference Centre and The Orchards Hotel. Both venues certainly added to the success of the event.