The eTEN Procure project aims at enabling electronic bids for public procurement procedure through safe and intuitive web services for SMEs, across 5 pilot regions in the EU.

From a regional experimentation...

Burgundy Regional Council has been experimenting since January 2005 a public tendering dematerialization service shared by all the public entities in Burgundy (local authorities, public hospitals, education institutions...).

Following the success of this service and the extensive use made of the latter, particularly by small and medium-sized businesses, Burgundy Regional Council has wished to find out how this experimentation could be deployed in other European regions.

...to an EU-funded project lead by a European consortium

In this context, Burgundy Regional Council has brought together a consortium made of five European regions and private partners and created the Procure project.

This project aims, after a preliminary study of the specific characteristics of public purchasing in different European countries, to make the following possible:

• Adapt the service currently used in the Burgundy region to enable its usage in other European countries (compliance with European directives and with local legal constraints) and to better address SMEs’ specific needs regarding public procurement,
• Check the suitability of the adapted services by conducting 5 pilots in 4 European countries (France, Czech Republic, Spain and Sweden);
• Communicate the results of this work to all organizations involved in public procurement at an European level (elected associations, professional federations, consular organizations, etc.).

This project is funded the European Union via the eTEN programme. eTEN is a European Union programme designed to contribute to the deployment of trans-European e-services in the public interest.

Timeline 

The project has started on October 2007. The pilot experimentations will start during the first 2008 quarter. Final report is expected on first 2009 quarter.