Publication of bookA book was published that summarises part of the work executed in the frame of a joint collaborative project, co-funded by the European Commission under the 5th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, and specifically by the Programme for Innovation and SMEs. This project started with the objective, among others, to study the procurement frameworks and procedures that are used by telecom operators in order to carry out innovative projects, and to develop recommendations on how the rest of the utilities can make their procurement procedures more innovation-friendly, benefiting from the experience gained by the telecommunications sector. This project is titled “Innovation-friendly Public Procurement & Fight Against Telecommunications Fraud and Security Threads” – or INNO-UTILITIES for short. The overall volume of work was in the order of 150 person months, whereas about 40 person months were invested in the study of the innovative procurement and the development of above-mentioned recommendations. The project was executed jointly by Eurescom GmbH, Portugal Telecom, Virtual Trip Ltd., INA Telecom, Lund University, and University of Patras. In addition opinions were capture via interviews with experts from telecommunications sector related associations, such as ETNO (European Telecommunications Network Operators Association), FIINA (Forum for International Irregular Network Access) and HFF (Hellenic Fraud Forum). Download the book: Procurement as an Innovation Instrument, by Anastasius Gavras, Leif Hommen, Max Rolfstam, Michalis Mavis, Nikolaos Vasileiadis, Luis Sousa Cardoso Dimitrios Trigos, Dimitrios Serpanos The project concluded in October 2005. Public procurement rules in Europe hamper innovationPublic procurement rules in the European Union hamper the
adoption of innovative products and services. Under the current procedures,
the public sector is not encouraged to act as a launching customer for
innovative products and services, researchers from EU project INNO-UTILITIES
claim. <4 August 2004>
Advancing innovative procurement in utilitiesIn mid-October, the EU project INNO-UTILIITIES was
launched at a kick-off meeting in Heidelberg, Germany. The main goal of the
project is to develop innovative procurement processes in utilities focusing
on telecommunications as a key enabler and exemplary utility. <4 November 2003>
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