Alvaro Porro, Director of Social Economy and Cooperatives at Barcelona Activa, explains how a public-private collaboration with the Autonomous University of Barcelona and IGOP allowed the incorporation of knowledge and rigorous methodology on responsible public procurement. The project has given rise to a new strategic procurement office and a training itinerary for SMEs that has won awards at a European level.
Barcelona Activa is the economic development agency of Barcelona City Council. At the beginning of the 2010s, the institution faced a strategic challenge: how to orient public procurement towards social and environmental criteria, at a time when European directives 2004/18/EC and 2014/24/EU opened a window of opportunity to turn public procurement into an instrument of economic and social policy.
The answer came through the Industrial Doctorate Plan: a collaboration with the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the Institute of Government and Public Policies (IGOP) that incorporated industrial doctoral student Yunailis Del Valle Salazar Marcano to address the challenge from within the organization.
For three years, Del Valle Salazar carried out action research based on organizational ethnography (in-depth interviews, participant observation and analysis of real processes) in Barcelona City Council and Barcelona Activa. The result was the thesis ¿Quién levá el timón? La implementación de la Contratación Pública Socialmente Responsable en el Ayuntamiento de Barcelona , which identifies the legal, political and organizational factors that condition the implementation of this model and proposes a management framework aimed at other public administrations that want to innovate in the procurement of services.
The impact has materialized in concrete tools: a training itinerary to bring SMEs and social economy companies closer to public procurement (awarded with the European Procura Plus Award) and the design of a new strategic procurement office. The industrial doctor has continued to be professionally linked to the institution once she defended her thesis.
Álvaro Porro, Director of Social Economy and Cooperatives at Barcelona Activa, tells us how he experienced the process from the inside.
– What did the industrial doctorate that you carried out with Barcelona Activa consist of?
– It was a time when Barcelona Activa and the Barcelona City Council wanted to promote responsible public procurement, that is, public procurement that incorporates social and environmental aspects. We collaborated with an industrial researcher from the Autonomous University of Barcelona who, precisely, wanted to do applied R&D on this topic. Therefore, it was a perfect “matching”.
– What were the initial expectations and what were the final returns?
– For us, one of the main objectives was to incorporate knowledge and know-how about public procurement into Barcelona Activa and the City Council, with this new focus on the social economy and on what is socially and environmentally responsible. We also wanted to incorporate methodology and analytical capacity to understand how we could obtain results and what tools we had to use. The truth is that the result met our objectives quite well.
We incorporated “know-how” through the person who came, who had been doing research on this topic for some time and who, in a way, had already done a “benchmarking” of what existed in public administration. In addition, we were also able to incorporate methodological capacity for analyzing public policy: how it should be done, how to analyze results. Therefore, both knowledge and methodology were two of the gains we obtained with this industrial doctorate.
"Both in knowledge and in methodology, these were two of the gains we had with this doctorate."
– What added value does this industrial doctorate bring to you? How does it differ from other public administrations?
– Basically, I think that first it allowed us to analyze with a broad view and with some depth. The industrial researcher conducted interviews in different areas of the City Council and Barcelona Activa, and also worked with researchers from other universities. This gave a breadth of view on the state of the art in the field of public and responsible procurement that, hardly, any other public administration has had. In addition, carrying out this analysis allowed us to identify the strengths and weaknesses of our public policies in this field, and obtain inputs to design future public policies.
In fact, we are currently building a strategic recruitment office that is largely based on the work done at that time. And this person has continued to be professionally linked to us and is helping us in this new stage, once he finished his industrial doctorate.
– What is the relationship with the university like and what key factors have allowed you to successfully reach the end of the project?
– In this case, it was a person linked to the Autonomous University of Barcelona who also worked with a public policy research institute, IGOP. The relationship with IGOP was already fluid, since we collaborate in the field of public policy. As I said before, it provided us with methodology and rigor in terms of public policy analysis, and this is an added value that is not necessarily easy to find in public administrations. Furthermore, I think there was a lot of flexibility on all sides: we were able to find a working mechanism with the industrial researcher that was compatible with her research dynamics, in a way that both the University and Barcelona Activa were able to adapt to.
I think it’s a key element: understanding the dynamics of each one. We need to get results, in the sense of solving challenges and moving forward with the work we have to do, and they need to generate a framework that, from a research perspective, also generates results.
"In fact, right now we are building a strategic recruitment office that, in large part, is based on this work that was done at that time and, in fact, this person has continued to be professionally linked to us and is helping us in this new stage, once he finished his industrial doctorate."
– How have you experienced, from Barcelona Activa as an institution, the fact of having to publish results of doctoral research?
– I’m not very aware of the issue of publishing results. Yes, the industrial researcher did the thesis and I actually went to the presentation, which we gave her cum laude, but I’m not up to date on the publication of specific papers. What I can say is that we are using her thesis and the conclusions in the construction of this office. We are giving it real use, which is what matters.
– How are you implementing the results of this doctoral research in your day-to-day life?
– The central thesis of the research is that the way in which public procurement is carried out from a social and environmental impact perspective also has an impact on the quality of public service. This conclusion is what has inspired the creation of a new public policy tool by the Barcelona City Council and Barcelona Activa: a strategic procurement office that, to a large extent, is based on this thesis and the identification of challenges and needs that was made during the research.
It is a project in the design and construction phase, but there are already smaller projects that have been implemented and even awarded. As a result of this doctoral thesis, the need to generate tools was identified to facilitate small and medium-sized enterprises and social economy companies to approach public administration as suppliers. We created a training itinerary based on the detection of needs made during the research.
This itinerary, which we have been doing for some time at Barcelona Activa, is quite successful and has been awarded at a European level with the Procura Plus Award, which recognizes it as a high-quality training itinerary to bring public procurement closer to small and medium-sized enterprises and the social economy.
– Why would you recommend doing an industrial doctorate at a public institution like yours?
– I would recommend doing an industrial doctorate at a public institution for three reasons. First, because it incorporates knowledge close to the state of the art. Second, because it provides methodology and the ability to analyze with rigor, both of what is being done and of what the design of future public policies could be. And third, because it allows us to attract high-value talent, which is not easy in public administration given the way in which selection systems work. Young, motivated talent, which revitalizes the way we face day-to-day challenges.
