The GÉANT Community Programme (GCP) welcomed a new Special Interest Group for Procurement (SIG-Procurement), established in 2024 to bring together procurement professionals across the community to collaborate, innovate, and share expertise. CONNECT spoke with Badreddine Ajbar El Gueriri, the coordinator of SIG-Procurement, to reflect on the achievements of the group so far, and to look ahead at their future goals.
What does SIG-Procurement aim to achieve within the community?
Our mission is to elevate procurement as a strategic function that delivers value beyond just cost savings. We have three main goals, the first consisting of sharing best practice and to learn from one another’s experiences. From this, we then aim to foster collaboration across NRENs and institutions to ensure consistency and efficiency, and champion innovative procurement.
By connecting procurement professionals through SIG-Procurement, we create a community that empowers individuals and strengthens our function, and we hope to contribute to the success of all the organisations involved.
You’ve had multiple meetings since the formation of the SIG. What topics have you covered within these?
We aim to shape these sessions around the interests of our community by gauging interest in the topic beforehand. Over the past year, we have covered a wide range of topics. Some of the bigger themes, such as Big Tech and Sustainability, have sparked such strong engagement that we are looking into initiating follow-up discussions.
TNC25 also provided us with a great opportunity to meet with members of the SIG. Even in an age where digital collaboration is easier than ever, there’s something invaluable about connecting face to face. We will certainly explore more opportunities like this in the future. We used our TNC25 session to dive deeper into the topic of sustainability and share some of the key challenges GÉANT is facing in this area.
What are some key challenges and opportunities in public procurement?
Monique Pellinkhof, member of the SIG-Procurement steering committee, former Senior Procurement Specialist, and new Head of Legal at GÉANT, shares her views on the challenges and opportunities in the current landscape of Procurement in this community.
“One significant challenge and potential opportunity in public procurement is the continuous engagement with the market. On the one hand, this engagement allows for sharing possibilities and potential requirements between both parties, facilitating the creation of mutually beneficial solutions. Conversely, it presents the challenge of upholding transparency and ensuring an equitable approach for all parties, while avoiding oversharing that could weaken negotiation positions.
A current challenge of a geopolitical nature involves the legislative measures and regulatory framework aimed at increasing the EU’s economic security. This is coupled with the EU’s push to diversify sources and enhance supply chain resilience. These efforts highlight vulnerabilities and necessitate measures in EU public procurement, such as de-risking and diversification of the supply base as opportunity. The increasing legal complexity underscores the growing importance of legal compliance.
Overall, this is a thrilling period that underscores the necessity of collaboration, emphasising the importance of jointly navigating the balance between challenges and opportunities.”
What topics would SIG-Procurement like to explore in the future?
John Shaile from Jisc, and Chair of the Steering Committee suggests a variety of topics he believes SIG-Procurement should focus on for their upcoming session.
“Collaborative Procurement Across NRENs is an important topic to focus on, looking at the opportunities for joint procurement to leverage economies of scale, and any governance or legal contract models for cross-border procurement collaboration. With the upcoming developments with AI, delving deeper into digital transformation would be another great collaboration opportunity. We could explore the use of AI and automation in sourcing and supplier management, and data analytics for spend visibility and decision-making. The final topic I believe SIG-Procurement should focus on is supplier relationship management (SRM). Within this, we can share best practice for strategic supplier partnerships, look into risk management and resilience in supplier networks, and performance monitoring examples.”
Finally, why should people join SIG-Procurement if it is relevant to their area of work?
From my experience, our procurement function holds a unique position. We’re fortunate to be part of a broad community of professionals who share similar challenges, goals, and insights. This connection is a privilege, and one we should continue to nurture.
If you work within this field, and are interested in learning more from our community, please reach out and join SIG-Procurement to learn from one another, and continue to innovate together. The collective engagement is what makes this community valuable, and I am excited to see what’s next for SIG-Procurement.
For more information, visit: https://community.geant.org/sig-procurement
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