II International Public Procurement Conference
September 21-23, 2006
Rome, Italy

CALL FOR PAPER PROPOSALS/ ABSTRACTS

Driven by demand for further control over public spending and more efficient acquisition processes,
procurement has become a key public function. Significant technological changes, international trade and global competition have forced governments and public institutions to extend policy interests beyond cost minimization, and to pursue new challenges including innovation, competition, transparency and reforms.

Further, policy makers have become aware of the role of public procurement for many other socioeconomic purposes. Crossing both economics and business, public procurement has raised the interest of practitioners directly involved in the management of purchases, and academic researchers to answer key questions and to explore new issues and to debate on an extensive range of topics.

The first International Public Procurement Conference (IPPC1), held in Fort Lauderdale (Florida) in 2004, brought together academics and professionals from many countries to share best practices and to discuss critical issues. The fertile mixture of experiences, interests and contributions that emerged in that first event represents an important basis upon which to build the 2nd International Conference of Public Procurement (IPPC2). The 2nd Conference, which will be hosted by the University of Rome “Tor Vergata,” Faculty of Economics on September 21st and 23rd 2006 aims at extending and deepening the topics of major interests that arose from IPPC1, by selecting theoretical, empirical, practical and institutional contributions on a variety of topics.

We welcome papers that include—but are not limited to:

• Public procurement and institutions (law, politics, public finance); Public procurement in developing and developed countries (capacity building, reforms);
• Lessons learned (case studies, benchmarking);
• Procurement and Innovation (new technologies, e-procurement, firms’ investments in R&D/innovation);the role of standards in Procurement Markets;
• Accountability and transparency (preventing corruption, ethical codes) in public procurement;
• Competition and procurement (impact on SMEs, competitiveness, antitrust);
• Procurement processes and performances (business models);
• Public tendering (procedures, auction design);
• Handling socio-economic concerns in public procurement policies (environment, employment, SMEs);
• Administration of public procurement (structures, policies, centralization, decentralization) ;
• Corporate governance models and public procurement.