The Procure solution source code released

As the solution reaches stable/production stage, the Procure consortium is happy to release the source code of the regional platform and of the european portal under the GNU GPL license. Anybody, from software analysts, public administrations and companies, can now review, study, modify, use and redistribute the software.

The releases of the portal and of the regional platform have been published on the "Open Source Observatory and Repository for European public administrations" forge. The OSOR.eu platform supports and encourages the re-use of publicly-financed Open Source Software developments, focusing on those of use to European public administrations, which makes it the perfect place to gain more visibility and to spread the solution.

A 3 minutes clip to explain the Procure solution

Upcoming Procure Final conference

The Procure European project has confirmed the interest of sharing model for the regional public market places. Furthermore, without forgetting the interoperability issues allowing local solutions to exchange in order to overcome borders remaining in the domain of public purchasing. Wider concurrence allowing better use of public money, reducing of costs thanks to a multi-entity base and open-source solutions, cutting off red tape for small and medium enterprises – these objectives may be now easily addressed by the European administrations!

After 21 months of experimentation in five pilot sites across EU, the time has come to assess results obtained and share our findings with you. On behalf of the Procure consortium, the Regional Council of Burgundy has the pleasure to invite you on the final conference leading to a complete overview of results obtained. Our sessions will be held on March 16th and 17th in Brussels, as follow:

Presentation to the representatives of European regions - 16th March (afternoon)

 The Procure project, consisting of a network of regional concentrators, has proven that this model was appliable in various contexts, and allows a quick development of a shared tool, while generating important savings.

For registration and additional information, download the program.

Procure final conference - 17th March

This presentation is open to all interested parties willing to participate in the development of e-government and e-procurement. It will address the areas for improvement and present the feedback of the experimentating regions.

For registration and additional information, download the program.

First feedback regarding the deployment of e-procurement towards economic operators

After a first phase of study (initial market analysis), the Procure project has for objective to carry out experimentations in terms of e-procurement in five pilots regions. A part of these experimentations concerns the deployment of e-procurement towards companies and more particularly SMEs.

In November 2008, it appears that some pilots are very advanced on the deployment operations (Brittany Region and in particular) when others just started or are preparing the deployment.

To assist theses pilots, Sopra Group has collected a feedback on the operations carried out by the more advanced pilots based on interviews with the pilots regions involved in Procure project and with the E-Bat project manager.

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eProcurement: Piedmont’s experience in Europe

The public consortium CSI-Piemonte has held with the help of Piemonte Regione a special workshop dedicated to Procure’s presentation. Thanks to the funding by the Regional Authority, the CSI had developed in 2003 its virtual service for the procedures linked to purchasing. The experience acquired in this field makes the CSI an important partner within the Procure experimentation.

The local solution offers to public bodies and to economic operators the tools allowing consultation of calls for tenders, analysis of tenders, awarding and the follow up. This step address the goals stated by the Strategy defined in 2000 in Lisbon, which may be resumed as “the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world”.

• Download the program
• Download the press release
• Videos and slides from the conference
  • Opening speech, Roberto Moriondo, Regione Piemonte
  • Demonstration of on-line purchasing portal, Adriano Leli, CSI-Piemonte ; slides
  • Presentation of technical issues, Vania Rostagno, CSI-Piemonte
  • Testimonial from the Burgundy region, Louis-François Fléri, Coordinator of Procure ; slides
  • The PEPPOL project and services of eProcurement in Europe, Leonardo Bertini, Euroean project PEPPOL ; slides

Central Bohemia Region organizes first training session towards public buyers

Our experimentations have reached the state of the release of operational Czech service that we have presented to purchasing officers, one of two main groups of Procure platform users. The Regional Authority invited about 30 public bodies from the whole region as cities, communities and other bodies using public contracts.

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Public procurement: Commission assesses the use of electronic procurement in Europe

The Procure team recommends a European survey on the use of e-procurement, which will help provide the first systematic overview of e-procurement in the EU and guide future EU action in this field. If you are a business, a public purchaser or an institution responsible for public procurement policy and wish to participate in this survey, please have a look at the press release and follow the instructions.

Cross-border e-procurement: the Procure project case

Procure is a European project whose objective is to expand usage of e-tendering platforms. 5 regions take part in this project with the assistance of University of Bremen and the societies Atexo, Sopra Group and Marakanda.

One of the objectives of this project is to find out opportunities to carry out e-procurement between European Members States.

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CSI-Piemonte joins the Procure project to lead the experiment in Piemonte

Following the decision of the Generalitat de Catalunya to leave the Procure project, the consortium has integrated CSI-Piemonte, the local concentrator for Piedmont, Italy, which had already expressed a great interest in the project and was invited to present its case in the first plenary meeting of Procure. It will be a great testcase for both the solution and the local concentrator model for e-government at the regional level, with a dedicated team to promote and drive the project on the field. You will find additional information on CSI-Piemonte in the Partners' section and on the experiment content on the WP11 page in the Work plan section.

Taking advantage of the administrative changes, the project duration has also been extended until the end of March 2009, in order to leave a full 18 months period for the experiment. 

Before and during the summer, the Procure team has dedicated a lot of time to solve administrative issues and to make this partnership happen, while continuing the efforts to deploy the solution. Today, the development platforms, which contain several specific functionalities are being extensively tested and improved by all partners, in each region. They should be put in production in the near future. Meanwhile, the european portal for tenders, which will aggregate the content of the regional platforms easily and will allow to test the crossborder functionalities, is getting ready for production, and will soon be available on www.eten-procure.com.

Keep checking this space for updates from the partners on the progress of the experiments in the pilot regions!

Let’s talk about e-procurement...

The Procure project team encourages you to visit and join a new reference site on eProcurement: the eProcurement forum on www.epractice.eu.

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