Marta Andhov [00:00:00]

Welcome to the Bestek, the Public Procurement Podcast. Today we’re discussing with Willem Competitive Sales of Land in the Dutch case of Didam and networking for young academics.

About Bestek [00:00:17]

Welcome to Bestek, the public procurement podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Willem Jansen and Dr. Marta Andhov discuss public procurement law issues, their love of food, and academic life. In each episode, Willem, Marta, and their guests search for answers to intriguing public procurement questions. This is Bestek. Let’s dish up public procurement law.

Marta Andhov [00:00:42]

Hello, my co-host. How are you?

Willem Janssen [00:00:45]

Hey, Marta. I just. I think we just realised we haven’t seen each other in two years.

Marta Andhov [00:00:50]

Yeah. We have a long, long distance. Sort of through electronic means relationship, you know.

Willem Janssen [00:01:00]

It’s a long-distance academic relationship.

Marta Andhov [00:01:04]

It’s a very 22nd century already. You won’t see each other for a long time. But you would talk to each other often.

Willem Janssen [00:01:11]

Exactly. I have no idea if you still have legs. But look, other than that, it’s been great podcasting over the last two years.

Marta Andhov [00:01:18]

Let’s see where we see each other finally in person. Today, we have quite a slightly different approach. And what I mean by that is that during our main course, our main theme for the podcast, when we discuss public procurement issue, we actually will look a little bit into a specific new case, national case from the Netherlands and sort of connected to procurement a little bit outside. And William, I would let you to sort of lead on this and tell us a little bit more why? Why actually, we’re looking specifically into into that case what sort of lies behind it.

Willem Janssen [00:01:59]

Yeah. So, I think what’s and it always fascinates me maybe to start off with that, it always fascinates me to hear from about national cases, whether they’re French, Polish, Italian or Spanish, to see what actually happens with EU law in practise. Right. How the national courts assess it and what goes on there, because not everything reaches, I suppose, the Court of Justice in the end.

Marta Andhov [00:02:23]

Probably majority, right? Probably actually majority of issues do not have a chance to be considered by the Court of Justice.

Willem Janssen [00:02:30]

Exactly. Because in the end whether it’s the last quarter of instance decides based on {—-} case law that it’s not necessary to ask those preliminary questions or if there’s no infringement procedure, then, you know, it can keep going on for years and years. Particularly, and this is the playing field that we’re talking about today when there’s a scenario that falls outside the scope of the public procurement directive. So we’re talking today about a competitive duty in case of a sale of land. And the Court of Justice has clearly said in 2010, in the milestone case of Helmut Mueller, that such an award of land falls outside the scope of the public procurement directive. So we’re really looking at national law today. And I promise I’ll make it as exciting as possible to talk about Dutch.

Marta Andhov [00:03:30]

As sale’s land exciting can be, right?

Willem Janssen [00:03:32]

Exactly. But I think the underlying question really is and that’s where it gets a bit more fundamental, and we’ll mostly talk about that case. I think the first question is when do we think it’s wise to have competitions for instruments that are that are scarce? So, when we talk about limited authorization schemes, subsidies, those type of things, and land and public contracts, of course, and concession contracts. When is it useful to have those competitive obligations and when do we actually have them right in the law from legal perspective? So that’s really what sparked my attention. And then I posted about this case on Twitter. Some people responded and they said amongst Rich Albert, and they said, look, we’d love to learn more about it. So, then I kind of felt noblesse oblige, but like I had to say something about it, and then I forced you to do it as well. So, there we are.

Marta Andhov [00:04:25] There we are. Well, I think that the interesting points surrounding these considerations are also around the fundamental issue underlying the sort of logic behind public procurement often, which is, you know, you are spending public money. So there is a need for particular transparency and the fact that you really conduct the business in a really reasonable way with the respect of the sort of economical efficiencies, etc., etc. But I think the same argument very easily can be used in the context of selling anything, right? So, when you’re selling something, you still sort of deal with public assets. So, there is still sort of public money in the in the pool. So, to exaggerated purposely if you kind of sell it for, you know, €1 to your brother-in-law. And that’s obviously quite problematic. Right. And if there is a certain competitive aspect of it, that that sort of should, again, get the best deal to use our language, our procurement language here, right to the to the public authority, contracting authority, whoever is the institution that sells things. And another sort of core related aspect to that, actually, we don’t talk about it these days maybe that much because this whole new things about digitalisation, sustainability, climate change really takes over in many ways aspects of, of, of procurement. But, but another aspect of it is that the concession for a long time, particularly service concession, were really at the forefront of the topics that are being discussed by the Court of Justice that ultimately right now we have a codification of service concession. But a lot of attention have been in the past given to this conversation about things that are sort of covered, not covered maybe, and to what extent the treaty principles apply still to this. And so not. So, talk us through… Sorry, because I think I jumped you. You had a comment.

Willem Janssen [00:06:31]

There are advantages to seeing each other a little bit. I was on the tip of my chair.  I think you made two really valid points. And I think particularly the first one, I think it’s always felt a bit inconsistent when I heard about this, particularly when I first started work in public procurement law is: why do we not regulate sales? So, because in a way, just to add to your logic, right, because your argument, if I paraphrase it right, there’s something of economic value that could still could still be sold for a bad price so that the interest is the same as when you buy something, but also that you could still also raise the internal market perspective on that. Right. So, if you’re selling a big military base, which would be really nice for hipsters to have beautiful apartments or for if you’re selling land for development, for whatever social purpose where artists can and can kind of have their, I tell you or whatever, you know, just for different types of purposes, the idea could be the same. You might want that to happen sustainably as well. You might want to include social consideration and the interest from abroad can definitely be there as well. So just to add to what you were saying, I think it’s interesting that I don’t find that discussion. Perhaps it’s a bridge too far because it is impeding, again on the discretion of contracting authorities or selling authorities, I should say, to do whatever they want. But in a way, it feels inconsistent.

Marta Andhov [00:07:58]

Yeah. I think that the one more aspect that I would also add is that, you know, another layer that is in this. Also, just public interest rate. So, if that is sort of in line of some sort of version of procurement or it’s not necessarily I think we don’t argue necessary that it should be under procurement or but the whole notion. Well, again, dealing with some sort of public assets in public money, if you’re doing that in particularly somehow negligent way or in particularly sort of corrupt way or whatever else is wrong, we can imagine. I think that public has his right to know. Right. So, I think that there is for sure aspect of it that underlines our conversation. But then with this sort of broad intro that we hope that with this intro, what we tried to do is to sort of link to our listeners that even that we’re not discussing strictly a procurement case, there is a correlation. And I think one last aspect here is also to point out, because we actually moving broadly with procurement regulation to sort of going a step further than saying how you buy something too. Also to a certain extent, we slowly entering the space of saying what you are to buy, right, with this minimum green requirements, etc., etc.. So, so also up here, very theoretically sort of discussing how, how far we can broaden the procurement kingdom potentially. So Willem, without, can you give us a little bit of context, background and what this case in Netherlands was about and why it’s bring some sort of discussion in question and why it seems to be a sort of hot topic in your neck of the woods.

Willem Janssen [00:09:45]

So, I kind of feel like now we’re trying to make ourselves more important than we actually are. But, with that introduction, we set the bar so high, I’ll do my best. So basically, I would say the main legal question in this case was should a Dutch public authority abide by the principles of good administration, which would include principles of equality and transparency, which are vested in Dutch public law, and should they abide by them when they sell land? And then does that mean that if you want to abide by them, does that mean that you need to set up some type of competition? Which would mean that direct awards of land. So, when I say awards because clearly that’s the terminology but directly sell to one individual without any type of competitive procedure, is that non-compliant with the law. All right. So basically, the facts are as follows. And I was happy to hear there were supermarkets, because it kind of made me feel like it fitted with our theme of after conference dinners. So there’s a municipality called Montferland And I first I had these thoughts of making you say Montferland but then, you know, I’ll leave it at that. It’s near Arnhem. Nijmegen, perhaps familiar to people in the east of the Netherlands.

Marta Andhov [00:11:08]

Because that tells us a lot of, right?

Willem Janssen [00:11:10]

Arnhem and Nijmegen, if you’re interested in the Second World War about that there, they might spark maybe market garden thoughts but that’s the region that we’re in a bit more to the east even we’re close to the German border. Just to set the scene and basically that municipality had set out to sell a plot of land to a single real estate developer who wanted to establish a supermarket in the heart of that town. Right. Another developer had also shown interest who wanted to establish another type of supermarket. The first one was a co-op. The other one was a competitor. And the municipality decided to go for the first one, which meant that it was directly given the sale or sold, I should say, to the first developer. And surprise, surprise, the second one filed a lawsuit claiming that there should have been some type of competitive. There is a competitive obligation, and it’s the deed. The direct sale of land was illegitimate under Dutch law. Now, what was interesting is it went through the district court, court of Appeals, the advocate general at the Supreme Court. They were all aligned, and they said there was no competitive obligation. Then, of course, the Supreme Court decided the contrary, which as, you say, hot topic, but I think that’s the only thing we’ll be talking about this year in 2022, in in the public procurement context in the Netherlands. Because even though the judgement I think is quite accessible and unfortunately, it’s not available in English, but Google Translate helps and if anyone has questions, I’d be happy to help of course, but it’s very short and quite concise. So, I think Google Translate will help. I think I’ll post the link to the case in the blog post that comes with the episode. So, basically that’s the setting that we’re in. It’s kind of also it feels a bit like a classic public procurement scenario, right? I know we’re not supposed to say it is, but it’s the competitor not being happy, filing a claim and then, you know, asking and saying basically you violated the law. This should have been put up for a competitive procedure Right?

Marta Andhov [00:13:25]

Can you just clarify for me. So, when they when they referred to the breach of the law, what the law they are citing is as being in breach.

Willem Janssen [00:13:36]

Yeah. So, they’re basically saying that in the Dutch Civil Code, Article 3-14. So, book 3, Article 14, it says that when executing competencies based on public law, you’re not allowed to violate those public law principles written or unwritten. And one of those written ones are principles of good governance, which, you know, inform generally the principle of due care, principle of openness and transparency. So, the general administrative principles that apply to you all the functioning of public authority.

Marta Andhov [00:14:21]

Okay. So, the interesting part for some of our listeners also is like the combination of legal sources because you go through civil code two administrative law actually, right, which is also very procurement like because it’s this combination between public and private loaded we’re dealing with, right? Yeah, for sure. And what the Supreme Court sort of debated within that case? What was particularly interesting here then?

Willem Janssen [00:14:47]

So particularly interesting is I think it’s sometimes we tend to say that judges or lawyers in general or scholars are very vague, and they live behind their facades. But this is an incredibly accessible judgement, short to the point, and it basically says it starts off by re-emphasizing. What we just said is, this is not something that falls under the public procurement directives or the Dutch Public Procurement Act. This is something that falls within Chapter three, Article 14. And basically, we need to decide if these principles apply and if they mean any. In this context. And the Supreme Court confirms both. So, the Supreme Court first says the principle of equality means equal chances in this case, and it requires public authorities to create, and I quote here, well, not in English, but in Dutch, a competitive space.

Marta Andhov [00:15:46]

So open market a little bit, in our context.

Willem Janssen [00:15:49]

There needs to be a competitive space and if and this is the condition, there are one or more operators interested. Sorry, more than one interested. So, we need to have multiple interest, such as is the case here. Right. You have two developers that want to establish a supermarket. And then I think what the court does very well is it kind of anticipates what that means. Right? Because clearly just saying that there needs to be some type of competitive space is still very vague. Instantly, public procurement comes to mind, but we’ll talk about that a bit later. But the court actually says, well, at least are required to set up criteria that are objective, verifiable and reasonable. I hear “succhi di frutta” out run through my head straight away. Yeah, absolutely. It’s not the exact same wording, but it does kind of resemble that type of that idea and it requires openness and transparency in relation to the procedure, time schedules, selection criteria. You need to give due consideration so that this is also important and a stress that potentially interested or interested parties can make notice of it. So, I see the link again with potentially interested parties also when we talk about, you know, the internal market thoughts. And the only exemption that exists based on this duty of tender is that there’s only one party interested. So, if you know that there’s only one. Then you can just directly award the land. You can sell the land directly.

Marta Andhov [00:17:29]

But what that means in the context of this requirements sort of transparency. Right. Because of course, the argument here could be, well, if you just know about one and you just give it to one, if you would fulfil that transparency, a version of that transparency that you inform the market, there might be more than one, right?

Willem Janssen [00:17:47]

I think you can work in Dutch practice. So, I think what’s interesting is to highlight some of the, you know, outstanding legal questions based on this, because I think you’re touching on a very important point is how do you then know? Right. Because I think. It would mean that you need to publish it at least. So, there would be some type of publication requirement. If that’s not the case, then maybe there’s an obligation to undertake a market control consultation, but that would also require publication, right? So, it really depends on what it is. But I think the minimum the bare minimum is just publication. Right. Same in public procurement like you are obligated to publish, but it could actually be smart to also consult the market in some type of way to establish what’s on offer, how to set up the procurement, etc.

Marta Andhov [00:18:41]

Well, I think that is for sure. Does, you know, combination between what is a good practise and what is the minimum sort of due diligence or the minimum legal standards to fulfil your basic requirements from sort of regulatory perspective. And this really again reminds us of a lot about the procurement cases on service concessions, right? Because this is very much a repeating these notions of what treaty principles you need to establish, right, which treaty principles you need to secure and the bare minimum of some sort of form of advertisement. It’s usually has always been classified as, as something that, that you would need to, you would need to at least to do that, even if then later you don’t really follow a very structured procurement process. So, this is very interesting what you’re describing because it is little bit like a mirror right on this sort of from buying to selling, in many ways.

Willem Janssen [00:19:34]

It feels like that. And also, it’s you can’t help but think that the court at least knows what public procurement is. I mean, I’d like to think that they know, but like that they’re aware of how these competitive procedures are set up in public procurement law. Even though the Dutch Supreme Court hasn’t ruled on many public procurement cases, the question that pops up we talk about outstanding questions, is public procurement law the blueprint? It’s clearly a different scenario, right? It’s clearly not the same. But should we look for inspiration when we look at public procurement law, when we talk about time schedules, right? When the court says this, there need to be criteria, need to be reasonable, does that mean that we use the timelines and schedules of what we’ve established in public procurement law? I think many lawyers would look for that.

Marta Andhov [00:20:27]

Yeah, because I think there are two things. One is that the language that is used exactly as you mentioned, it’s very like EU internal market freedom sort of language and the type of sort of referencing to transparency, open sort of competition indirectly. It’s almost seeming like someone who is preparing that judgement, right? Sort of read through how this works in procurement and sort of said, okay, well this sort of seems like a bit of a reasonable approach to it. So, there is for sure linkage. We could argue that there is some sort of help. And, if you would be a counsel to advise that, probably that would be something that you say. You know, again, this is like we’re kind of driving in the dark, but it can be a good sort of way. If that works for buying, maybe it will work also for selling here, right?

Willem Janssen [00:21:18]

Yeah, for sure. But the thing is, is yeah, if you’re a counsel then advising like you say, you could also say, well, the court explicitly says this is not a public procurement matter. So it would be interesting to see what the follow up of case lawyers is when even though I do like how the court has kind of foreseen the issues that would happen, if you say there needs to be some type of competitive space, maybe digging around or there needs to be some type of room to have these competitive procedures, it’s clear that this obligation would be something that is important, because then you’re not dealing with the contracting authority, but with a Dutch term of public art. Sorry, public authority, which would mean that, you know, the state, municipalities, water boards, provinces, and also those atypical ones, the traditional ones. Right. They would also fall under this obligation. So, any type of government would land is likely or very, very much likely to have to abide by this this duty. That’s one. And then there’s two major things that still are still outstanding is what happens to current contracts.

Marta Andhov [00:22:29]

Yeah. That was exactly what I was about to ask. Right. What is the impact of that judgement ultimately on the on the Netherlands practice right now how this is read in the context of what’s already happened and happening right now.

Willem Janssen [00:22:42]

It’s unclear there’s some case law that that actually states that the contract, those contracts or those bills that that you know bill of rights that choose to sell it. I’ve actually I’m null and void but there’s also some that argued otherwise so there’s the case law is not clear on this. So that’s, I think, one subject that will be dealt with in the future. But also, I think it’s very likely because this this development doesn’t come fall out of thin air. And that’s the last thing that I think is important. A notice without having to explain the whole structure of Dutch legal protection. There are two separate high courts, so one a general Supreme Court and one for specific matters mostly related to public law. And I’m generalizing now, and my colleagues will kill me if I say it like this. But that’s, I think, helpful. Both have very authoritative, highest authority to make these rulings. The other (dutch mumbling). I’ll get you to repeat that later. Has ruled in light of limited authorization schemes that there’s an obligation to have such competitive space. What the Supreme Court has done, it’s referred in its judgement to that other High Court, which is not unique, but it’s quite interesting because their lines could be, could vary as well. Right. There’s no binding authority on these courts to follow each other. So, we already had it, this competitive space in limited authorization schemes is quite a lot of work that’s gone into that also academically so far. So, we have limited authorization schemes, we have land now. We already had public contracts and concession contracts, but I think there’s an easy spill-over to ground lease building rights. Anything that has economic value, where there is some type of scarcity, I think nothing’s safe anymore. So, and it’s also sparked a debate about, yeah, what do we need to we really need all these competitive obligations and are they useful? Kind of coming back to what I started with is basically that any transaction with the government is under no obligation to tender or to set up a competitive type of procedure.

Marta Andhov [00:25:03]

So that is very interesting. And as we discussed sort of pre-studying our recording, we thought that this might be a good opportunity to utilize the network of this podcast and sort of conclude with a certain call for action. To sound very hyped. So, Willem, I will let you to do the call for action.

Willem Janssen [00:25:28]

So, I’ll be careful to note call to action in my emails to you later on. My call to action would be for those people interested in this topic. And listening is I’d be really interested to hear what your one legislative framework is for the sale of land. And if there are similar cases that perhaps the Netherlands is not unique, maybe we should temper our excitement as lawyers now or distress as public authorities. Perhaps this is common knowledge or common good to regulate sales as well as purchasing. Right. And I’d love to then know the nitty gritty as far as you have time to do that. But that would be my, dare I say, call to action. What is your member state do? What is your country do outside of the European Union in terms of sales instead of procurement? I’d love to hear that.

Marta Andhov [00:26:15]

Yeah, because I think that this is, again, one of those things that hopefully we can maybe exchange some practises experiences and there is a good chance that if Netherlands struggle with this right now as a sort of tricky aspect, that other member state may have the same problem at the hands. And maybe there’s some interesting approach that we can share. So, with that, we will just say we would love to hear from you if you have thoughts, ideas So we would be super grateful. And with that, I would also now want to move to our second part of our podcast, and that is the desert. So, if you by any chance tuning in for the first time or you didn’t hear it for some time, the concept of this podcast is to first discuss this nitty gritty, interesting, geeky procurement aspect. But we also work with a lot of young researchers. We are sort of part of this academic culture. So, in the second part of our podcast, when we discuss the desert, it’s a little bit more connected with academic life. And if that is connected with teaching, with mentoring, with sort of trying to give a good advice to our younger selves and by any chance maybe help someone, that’s what we’re trying to do. So today for our desert topic and we wanted to discuss networking for young academics, so we actually did a little bit of this type of call for actions. We ask on our social media, to our listeners, whether they have some ideas, what we should discuss. And I was one of the of the suggestions, so we would want to pick it up and shout out. I think that was Federica’s, wasn’t it? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So, thank you, Federica, for chipping in with your suggestions and we picking up on that. So yeah. Throwing the ball to you. Willem, when we talking about networking for young academics, I guess the underlying emphasis here is on the young academics. Do you think that there is maybe, a little bit different approach. What I mean by that, whether the young academic might be a little bit more stressed about networking in academia, what you would advise? What were your or like good practises or what worked for you? Or maybe what we love in this podcast is to share with the opposite a disastrous approach of saying, do not do that.

Willem Janssen [00:28:40]

Because we did it.

Marta Andhov [00:28:42]

Exactly.

Willem Janssen [00:28:42]

And it didn’t work. Well, I think the first thing is, is I find I don’t know if you have that too, actually, but networking has always seemed as a bit of a dirty word in academia. Is that correct?

Marta Andhov [00:28:55]

That’s true. That’s true. It’s the somehow of a less of an academic if you’re good networker. Yeah.

Willem Janssen [00:29:01]

If you’re but it’s always an awkward part I find, particularly when it’s like part of a programme or something. So, in academia I find that, well everyone understands its value but it can’t be a sole objective because then you’re too commercially minded. That’s my interpretation so far. But I don’t agree with that.

Marta Andhov [00:29:24]

No, I think it’s also quite old school. It’s kind of old school. Is this like we are a separate, almost like societal class and we need to be, very posh and it’s almost like if you are a professor that is sort of down to earth and reachable to your students and whatever you are less that you are supposed to be a bit mysterious. So I think that is a bit old school. Also, we sort of learn on online experiences how lonely this job also is and how much literally everyone that we know on all levels of this career feel at least once in a while like imposter syndrome. Having an imposter syndrome. I think that it changes a little bit. Yeah.

Willem Janssen [00:30:09]

Yeah. So, I think step one is to acknowledge that networking is normal, not dirty or whatever. It’s just, you know, it’s part of reaching out. And it’s also super vital for good research, right, to reach out, you know.

Marta Andhov [00:30:23]

So useful.

Willem Janssen [00:30:25]

So, it’s just a research to whether it’s peers, so other academics or whether they’re private stakeholders or whether they’re NGOs or social enterprises or government officials. Whoever would, you know, be relevant to speak to. I think it’s super important to do it. So that would be I think the second one is that and like you say, it also can help you get out of perhaps a little bit of an individual bubble, that can be quite depressing at times as well. So I think that helps. So, I think we’ve established it’s important. Is that what we’ve done so far?

Marta Andhov [00:31:02]

I think we did and I think that what are we trying to do, I guess, is also to say, you know, it’s not something because I feel like exactly as you said, is a dirty word, the sort of sales person type of like sort of thing that you’re trying to impose yourself on other people and whatever. And I don’t think that we need to change a certain mind mindset around that. And I think that, you know, I would go as far as saying, you know, having a good network that you can really utilise. And by saying utilise, again, I’m not meaning that in a dirty word of sort of trying to abuse someone, trying to take advantage of someone, but sort of use the network that you have the same way that you give into that network the same way as you asking for help, is usage of the same type of, you know, resources as reading blogs and books and anything else. You know, if, if something collaterally comes up from, I don’t know, defence procurement in my research or I can try to spend, you know, a week of trying to really get into the subject and find nitty gritty. Or I can pick up a phone to a couple of colleagues that I know that sit and do that and ask them. And that probably is much more resource efficient sort of spending of my time. Right. So I think that the key thing I think also for the young researchers that do not have much experience with that, I think that you really need to acknowledge that you need to give to your network the same way did you kind of ask to get. So, if I would imagine giving someone who continuously, you know, shoot me and shoots me an email, gives me a call, bumps to my office, asking for something all the time. And then, you know, on the odd occasion, I may ask, Oh, could you let me know what you thought about X, Y, is it and they don’t have time. What if it’s not reciprocal relationship. I think that that can come off a bit off, but I don’t know whether that’s just my perspective or whether you agree to.

Willem Janssen [00:33:02]

Yeah, for sure. And I think that’s also. Maybe that’s also part of the follow up. You’ve established that they’re part of your network. What I did, and I’m not saying that that’s the way to go, it helped me during my PhD was just to make a list of everyone that’s published on the subject that I was interested in what that I was researching. That kind of got me the academic list of people that were involved. I’m not saying that those would then be the most important people to contact or to at least discuss your research with, but at least they provide an interesting angle or weigh in. I did that the same with societal actors, with government officials, and so I went about it quite rigorously, just made lists, and then I just sent them emails. I said, Hey, this is I see you published this a while back. I was wondering if you still involved in that. I’m doing my research here. I’d love the opportunity to chat. And I find that even though that can be scary at times too, just because it’s kind of feels like cold calling or like you work at a call centre. I’ve always had responses. I mean, some people there was a bit of a delay, right? Because people to tend to have a lot on their plates, but. Everyone loves receiving emails that day where they actually feel like their work has been read. It’s valuable and that someone’s asking for help as are alright to be a sparring partner.

Marta Andhov [00:34:25]

Yeah. I think that I would say there are about two or three layers to it. I think as a young researcher what I would always advise and where I also got the most, you know, sort of value out of network is really actually networking with other PhDs and also PhDs that are just a little bit older and by older I mean in the in the years of experience of doing PhD, I don’t mean like your age, I mean like if you’re in your first year sort of chatting with people that are finishing their PhDs or things like that, because I think that the gap there is not that big and somehow you feel a little bit more comfortable, but they can already really advise you and give you some good hands and sort of building that network around me. I felt that that gave me a certain layer of confidence. So, I would definitely advise that. And that’s something that I always try to do to my kids, is trying to get them connected with as many other PhDs that I know. And then in regard to, you know, a sort of more senior researcher and other stakeholders, I don’t know whether you should have a different approach, but just bear with me and tell me if I don’t make any sense. But I sort of feel like when you talk to researchers, the things like you that you describe, for example, that you said, oh, you know, I read your piece on X, Y and Z. I’m sort of dealing with something similar. I, you know, I wasn’t sure. Could you tell me what you think about like actually starting a some sort of discussion or question that could be really interesting or just sort of saying, you know, I’m working with something similar. I would be really interested. Would you have time for, you know, a quick sort of zoom coffee or whatever? I would just want to introduce myself, because what’s the worst thing that can happen? They can just not respond. Trust me. Like, I don’t think that I know anyone who would get a very angry email or dismissive email like that.

Willem Janssen [00:36:22]

Everyone loves it. Like I said, they love that. Yeah. I don’t know if it’s something deeper psychologically or something that everyone loves being an expert or something, but when you hear that someone’s read it, it’s great.

Marta Andhov [00:36:32]

Actually, I think that’s the part that you sort of realise. It’s, it’s the same when we hear when people and we talk about a dread that people talk to us and say oh great to do your podcast and say It’s so nice to hear that people actually listen it.

Willem Janssen [00:36:46]

Don’t get ahead of yourself, Marta, not that many people listen to this podcast but yeah keep going.

Marta Andhov [00:36:51]

Well, you know for me hearing a bit more than like our spouses and our to like friends work-friends listen to anything beyond that for me is, you know, world domination. But then specifically, when it comes to stakeholders, I think state stakeholders and by that, I mean everyone else outside of academia. I think that time can be a bit tricky because particularly, you know, procurers and other stakeholders, they are super, super busy very often. I kind of feel or my advice, though, is that you kind of want to go to them when you also can kind of offer them something. Or showcase to them some type of value to sort of say, you know, I’m working on this. You know, the outcome of this will be X, Y and Z, I’m hoping, which could be helpful to you in that in that way, because I think that they sort of perceive as this, you know, sort of some sort of other tier of doing something. And I think for them, it’s a little bit more important to showcase how them spending time with you makes sense. But that might be also this sort of like a corporate mentality that I have, that I also always try to think, okay, like if I ask, you know, question, that’s beneficial to me because X, Y and Z, but how I can sort of return the favor if you answered the question, what I can offer to you to be helpful to your to your part, right?

Willem Janssen [00:38:18]

So, and even just to drop that, I think you’re right. It’s always you have to give a little bit in the relationship. But then again, I think from what I experienced is that’s sometimes can feel like a bit of a burden because you’re like, I’m just doing my PhD, what can I really offer? It’s already a bit scary, so I won’t approach them. Yeah, but I always find that when someone says PhD or junior researcher, like everyone’s willing to help. I don’t know. It’s like this warm bath, right? It as long as you have clearly in mind that like you say. So, in my case, okay, I’m working on my PhD and working on in-house and public corporation. You might struggle with those issues. Can I you tell me what those issues are? And then I can take it into account when I do my research. And then maybe in a couple of years you can answer.

Marta Andhov [00:39:06]

Yeah, right. Yeah. But I think it’s also and then the last point, because I do think that this is not specific again to maybe young researchers, but maybe that’s a sign of age. And if that is, please the listener, forgive me, but I feel like we in general sort of got a little bit less and less polite in our written communications as a society. I don’t know if this is sort of post-COVID or whatever we want to be that efficient, but I think this particularly if you kind of ask someone for something that ultimately is a bit of a favor, because it might be that someone is, you know, has certain knowledge or experience, just be extra nice when you get in touch, right. And you know, politeness and niceness just get you gets you ever is the same thing as Willem is saying is that people in generally are very welcoming. And I think it’s a little bit like when Willem was telling me, let’s do this podcast and the first sort of week when I was sort of thinking about it was like, Oh my God, people will hear what I’m saying. It will be bunch of nonsense. It will be tragic; it will be terrible. And you know what? The first two times I didn’t sleep afterwards, and I wanted to re-edit everything, but the notion of that is the more that you do it, the less you kind of get paralysed by it. We are just human, so it’s all good.

Willem Janssen [00:40:29]

Yeah. That’s it’s just not a beautiful way to end this podcast episode. It’s just we’re just humans.

Marta Andhov [00:40:38]

Just give it a go.

Willem Janssen [00:40:39]

Yeah, that’s just. We’re just humans. Just give it a go. I think so. We close it. Leave it at that.

Marta Andhov [00:40:44]

I would just ask you, just because of. We tend to be a bit rumbly. If so, if we are to bubble it up all with a nice or wrap it up with a nice sort of bow. So, what would be some technique strategies if you would give very tangible three advice for the young researchers about approaching networking? What could those be?

Willem Janssen [00:41:07]

The first one that we haven’t really discussed that it’s conferences meeting people live. Right. But we talked about that. We talked about conferencing before. So maybe have a listen to that episode. If you like someone’s work and it’s relevant to yours, shoot them an email, ask them the question. What you’re actually struggling with in your research. Link it to their expertise. And like you said, Marta, give it a call to action. Say, do you want to catch up for coffee? Do you have time for that? Of course, in a polite way. Because, I mean, everyone likes that, you know, it’s just the way it’s just the way of the world.

Marta Andhov [00:41:41]

And I think those are two very tangible points. And I think they were tested by, I think both of us. And this is how we met actually with Willem. Willem just shoot me an email and say: Hey, do you want to get a coffee online?

Willem Janssen [00:41:52]

Did I say something nice?

Marta Andhov [00:41:55]

If you wouldn’t say something nice, we wouldn’t be talking. So, we will wrap it out with that. That’s your three very tangible, hopefully concrete strategies, how you approach it. Let us know whether you think that that was anyhow helpful for that. That’s it. That was Bestek – Public Procurement Podcast.

About Bestek [00:42:18]

This was Bestek, the public procurement podcast. Do you want to contribute to today’s discussion? Then share your thoughts on LinkedIn or Twitter. Do you have an idea for a future episode? Write to us at www.bestekpodcast.com.

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