Introduction: The Promise and Perils of Innovation in Cross-Border Procurement

Abstract

This is the introductory chapter to a collective volume, Joint Public Procurement and Innovation: Lessons Across Borders (G. M. Racca – C. R. Yukins, eds.) (Bruylant, 2019), vol. 27 of the Administrative Law/Droit Administratif Collection (Director: Jean-Bernard Auby). Innovation is essential for sustainable and inclusive growth in an increasingly globalized economy. To achieve that potential, both the promises and perils of innovation must be investigated, including the risks and opportunities of joint procurement across borders. This in-depth research by a range of procurement experts investigates innovation in public procurement from three different perspectives. First, leading academics and practitioners assess the purchase of innovation, with a particular focus on public contracting for “smart cities,” with a view to meta-infrastructures, public-private partnership arrangements and “smart” contracts. A second line of inquiry looks for ways to encourage innovative suppliers. Here, the collected authors draw on emerging lessons from the United States and Europe, to explore the costs and benefits of spurring innovation through procurement. A third perspective looks to various innovations in the procurement process itself, with a focus on the effects of joint and cross-border procurement in both the European Union and the United States. These chapters review new technologies and platforms, the increasingly automated means of selecting suppliers, and the related efficiencies that “big data” can bring to public procurement. Expanding on research in the editors’ prior volume, Integrity and Efficiency in Sustainable Public Contracts: Balancing Corruption Concerns in Public Procurement Internationally (Bruylant 2014), this volume builds on a series of academic conferences and exchanges to address these issues from sophisticated academic, institutional and practical perspectives, and to point the way to future research on contractual models that are emerging from new procurement technologies. List of contributors: directed by G.M. Racca and C. R. Yukins, this book contains texts by: J.-B. Auby, A. Asatryan, M. Borodina, R. Cavallo Perin, L. Diesing, G.M. Di Giuda, D. Dragos, G.F. Ferrari, L. Folliot- Lalliot, J.M. Gimeno Feliu, M. Ismail, J. Kaufman, C. Kronke, I. Locatelli, P. Magina, P.T. McKeen, A. Mino Lopez, J. Molino, M. Pignatti, S. Ponzio, G.M. Racca, B. Racolța, A. Romeo, C. Santerre-Funderburg, D. Schoeni, M.A. Simovart, P. Valcarcel Fernandez, and C.R. Yukins.