The fourth International Research Study of Public Procurement was held in November 2009, in Lisbon involving invited participants representing 19 countries.

The research theme for IRSPP4 was:

The contribution of public procurement to support your government’s reaction to the current economic crisis.

In recent months Economic stimulus Packages (ESPs) have become a popular path to attempting to revive or to encourage economic activity during the current Global Financial Crisis (GFC). The remedies being applied in most jurisdictions are experimental, they often defy the conventional economic wisdom of the past 40 years, and, as we have found, there is no uniformity of response.

This workshop aimed to:

• Describe the nature of the economic package applied in each country
• Compare and contrast ESPs in a structured way
• Examine the role of public procurement in delivery and support of ESPs
• Examine the measurement of performance of ESPs and the role played by public procurement within them

Structured case studies were prepared and presented by senior public procurement practitioners and leading international academics in public procurement.

It was evident that a wide variety of elements of ESPs existed internationally. It was also clear that public procurement has been used in many cases as a policy lever to implement those Economic Stimulus Packages, particularly relating to investment in national and local infrastructure projects and also through changes to the public procurement process and regulations.

The case studies were revisited following the workshop to establish additional information to answer specific research questions that arose from the workshop. A complete analysis was then be performed across the cases, and the findings tested more widely in early 2010 across the international public procurement community.

Workshop Sponsors
Sincere thanks to the following organisations for their sponsorship without which this workshop would not have been possible especially during such an economically challenged period.