Financed Proposals

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Projects of the joint German-Austrian call 2013

Providentia – Raise of Austrian Safety Standards through “secure” Procurement

|   Call 2018

Development of a practice-oriented catalogue of measures for (public) procurers to raise safety standards with regard to products and delivery reliability. Goal: Ensure security of supply also in times of crisis and catastrophes (for example: food supply in hospitals).

Safety and Security play a role in procurement. In general, requirements on efficiency and reliability of bidders are part of tender processes. One specific aspect of reliability is yet not taken into account sufficiently: the ability of the bidder, to provide the service or work also in times of crisis and disasters (e.g. terror attacks, cyber-attacks, industrial accidents, natural disasters, power blackouts or pandemics). The majority of contracting authorities has insufficient information on whether their suppliers have a trained crisis unit and whether they run their risk and safety management processes properly. If (public) procurers do not focus on the aspect of resilience of bidders, it remains questionable if suppliers are able to deliver their contracted services in times of crisis or catas-trophes. For some of the contracted services or works reliability is insignificant, for example cleaning services for the office for the payment of fines. For other contracted services or works, reliability is of highest importance, e.g. for the supply of nursing homes with food and medication or the supply of hospitals with cleaning services. 

Main Focus of the Project: 

  • Raise awareness among (public) procurers in Austria for a) the importance of delivery reliability in times of crisis and catastrophes resp. the resilience of bidders and b) the procurement of products, services and works with high safety and security standards.
  • Raise awareness for the topic of resilience among suppliers.
  • Providing (public) procurers, suppliers and those in politics and administration responsible for the topic “secure and safe procurement” with a practice-oriented catalogue of measures.

The projects’ cross-cutting aim is to increase resilience and reliability within contracting authorities and contractors. The use of the developed catalogue of measures shall a) increase their ability to provide for employees and customers (residents of nursing homes, pupils, etc.) also in times when the country or parts of the country are struck by crisis and disasters; b) ensure the robustness of critical infrastructure networks and c) increase the resilience of the Austrian society as a whole.

Project Schedule: Based on a literature review and expert-interviews with procurers, suppliers and other experts, a first list of measures is developed from October 2019 to March 2020. Thereafter, these measures undergo a legal analysis (procurement law). From May 2020 to February 2021 the measures are discussed, revised and refined with an online questionnaire and three workshops together with contracting authorities, suppliers and other experts. After a final legal analysis, the catalogue of measures is completed in March 2021. 

Project leader
Interdisziplinäres Forschungszentrum für Technik, Arbeit und Kultur, IFZ

Project partner
Herbert Saurugg, Experte für die Vorbereitung auf den Ausfall lebenswichtiger Infrastrukturen
Johannes Pöcklhofer, Projektentwicklung, Marketing-, Event- und Gemeindeberatung

Contact
Dr.-Ing. Angelika Tisch (IFZ, Projektleiterin)
Schlögelgasse 2
8010 Graz

+43/664-88796975
angelika.tisch@ifz.at
www.ifz.at