Marta Andhov [00:00:00] Welcome to Bestek, the Public Procurement Podcast. Today, myself and Willem, are going to be chatting about proportionality, the Dutch way and best practices for edited volumes.

About Bestek Intro [00:00:18] Welcome to Bestek, the public procurement podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Willem Janssen 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 [00:00:43] Hello.

Willem Janssen [00:00:45] Hey. Good to be back.

Marta Andhov [00:00:47] Good to be back. Hopefully with a better audio than our last episode.

Willem Janssen [00:00:51] Oh, it was fantastic with you. All right. Well, let others be the judge of that.

Marta Andhov [00:00:55] That’s not what I heard from you. But we were. I know I’m in a proper recording studio, so I’m really hoping that the listeners will hear the difference. So, yeah. Good to see you again. We we taking today a little bit different sort of spin on things. As you heard in the title, we were talking we’ll be talking today about proportionality, the Dutch way. So to speak we are giving a spotlight/ a highlight to particular national approach to certain procurement aspect where a sort of more extensive development has been taking place and maybe the rest of us can take some inspiration and learn something of it, and so on and so forth. So without further ado, could I kindly ask you, could you tell us why proportionality or what we are actually talking about this proportionality guide? What is it what role it plays?

Willem Janssen [00:01:56] Of course. Let’s let’s start from the beginning and also why I like talking about these things, because I always find there’s lots of like funny stuff happening in the member states. Not saying that this is a funny topic, by the way, but like this, it’s it’s just, I think, the pleasure of being part of like a scholarly community that discusses EU law, which is, you know, at the level of the EU, of course, but then also you have this aspect of implementation, but also like national legislative actions that come on top or slightly alter, etc. the EU context. So it will be interesting to see if this will if the discussion that we have today, or perhaps not the discussion, but the guide itself will have some effect also beyond the Dutch borders, because I think when we talk about proportionality in the EU context, we’re really talking about the link to the subject matter of the contract. Think of things like the Concordia bus case by the Court of Justice and proportionality, often particularly in the EU context when we talk about the 2014 directives was often framed in in a way to achieve access for small and medium sized enterprises because such access would be limited.

Marta Andhov [00:03:13] Mm hmm. Just to piggyback to to to what you’re saying in the European context, just maybe to sort of use the European law language. So what are we talking about? If we’re talking about proportionality? Proportionality is a principle. We have that as a general EU law concept and the test that we apply, right. Which means whatever you do to making sure that only the necessary scale of actions are being taken and we apply this this proportionality test to assess whether, for example, any type of restriction that is being applied or justification can fulfil this proportionality test. Is that fair to say?

Willem Janssen [00:03:58] Yeah, of course or in Article 18, not to that we like to discuss with section one.

Marta Andhov [00:04:04] For the first time. Right. If I remember correctly, actually that proportionality is included as a principle even before this directive, of course it has been referred to.

Willem Janssen [00:04:16] Yeah. And you see the the EU legislator in multiple provisions trying to make sure that SMEs have access. And we saw a similar discussion in the Dutch context when the Dutch Public Procurement Act, the 2012 Act, we still call it 2012, but implementation of the new directives happened afterwards. So why that’s relevant is because the revision of the Dutch Public Procurement Act, which was sparked by a massive competition law issues in the construction sector at the start of the new millennium basically happens in conjunction with each other. So the EU directives were revised and the Dutch Public Procurement Act was revised and a very similar objective popped up. Access for SMEs. And this means that the Dutch Public Procurement Act contains many references to proportionality that are above and below the thresholds. The principle is applied and what does that mean? Is that contracting authorities or entities active in the in the utility sectors need to at least and I’m going to quote a list right now take into account proportionality, save for award criteria, deadlines or timelines exclusion grounds. Merging or not merging different type of contracts together. So is this just an individual contract for catering services or is it going to be support services all together with I.T and services together, but also things like the conditions of the agreement or the tender rebate that you might receive. So because you’ve had to make a lot of cost to to submitted a tender or a bid, you might get compensated for that. But that’s all still the procurement act.

Marta Andhov [00:06:20] So so predominantly do I understand you correctly that a jury debate around the principle of proportionality really in Dutch context usually refers back to this general notion of access for SMEs?

Willem Janssen [00:06:34] Yeah, or at least that was the the, the initial objective is that the these SMEs were met with disproportionate requirements, disproportionate conditions and criteria, and that in a general sense this hindered them from participating in public tenders.

Marta Andhov [00:06:52] Sure. I think proportionality is also is quite interesting because a version of proportionate proportionality principle, I think it’s not, you know, purely anyhow European law kind of concept of the legal system have some sort of versions of proportionality principles of reasonableness. English is a difficult language today in the system, right? So I think it’s also about how this mixture between a sort of national legal tradition and the approach to proportionality principle is somehow merged with this more European approach, particularly also in public procurement. Well, let’s go back then to THE guide, because as you mentioned, what what until now you told us is very much within the Procurement Act when the guide comes into place. So what the guide is, what is sort of speak legal standing or what is its function in procurement sort of arena in Netherlands.

Willem Janssen [00:07:53] So we have the Public Procurement Act. And then at the time the minister came up with this idea, a very Dutch approach to many issues in society is what we call [dutch mumbling]. And I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it. I mean, this could be the second Dutch word. So we have the stick already. Let’s go for [dutch mumbling]. I feel like I would need to start learning some of the words from the many languages that you speak as well. But because we’re talking about a Dutch guide, let’s talk about all of I won’t be able to be entirely exhaustive about what it means, but it means to a certain extent, a consensus based decision making. And that means taking into account a lot of perspectives in society and then coming to a consensus there. It’s also reflected in our political system. We don’t have one party rule. We have multiple parties. But also when we see things like discussions about competition law, you see that many of those are private initiatives trying to foster sustainability considerations, say farmers, supermarkets, the local governments, NGOs coming together to say :Hey, we don’t want to produce really fatty chickens anymore, right? We want to do that differently, which then leads to potential conflict and competition.

Marta Andhov [00:09:09] Democratic and inclusive approach to legal interpretation or application or so.

Willem Janssen [00:09:15] So Yeah. So it’s I’m I’m not sure if Democratic would be the right one because in a way you kind of take out a certain part of legal representation, right? Because it’s not like a bill being proposed discussed in Parliament. It would be like all a lot of representative bodies in society coming up with a way of how they would want to work. Right. And what’s interesting, though, is that and that’s where you are totally right about using that word is that with the proportionality guide, it kind of started to mix a bit. What happened was, is that this guide was set up and written by a writing group with representatives from contracting authorities and representatives from the market. And what the purpose was is to come up with a solution for these disproportionate conditions that could be subscribed by both sides of the procurement process. Right? Because the idea would be if all entities or both sides of the coin would be happy with this guide, it would actually be implemented and it would lead to an improvement of practices. What then happened, though, is that it was made into a. Ministerial decree, which meant that the proportionality guide is a bit more than the wording guide is a bit misleading because it’s actually binding law. So when you talk about the Procurement Act and the guide, both need to be taken into account when you when you procure on the market.

Marta Andhov [00:10:48] Can we go back a little bit for a second because this is…

Willem Janssen [00:10:52] You thought we weren’t geeking yet.

Marta Andhov [00:10:54] But this is right now. I think that we might for a second lose some of our practitioners for your first question. Yeah, I just, I just because this is sort of a little bit in totally different context, but what I’m looking at is here in Australia and I would want to just get a little bit of clarification for you. So when we say that Procurement Act is binding and you’re saying is a, you know, Parliament approved sort of audit in legal act, what is the difference when then you have a ministerial kind of order? So executive order, how that applies in context of bind, is it exactly binding the same way? What is the sort of legal nature of a difference between the two, kind of not from the perspective of a decision making process, how the law came to be, but from the perspective of actually then applying it?

Willem Janssen [00:11:49] Yeah, so you’re right. I think the main difference is how does it come to be? I think it’s also very member state specific or country specific because the what if you when you look at the comparison between executive orders that say that the Biden administration in the U.S. is very different to what the ministerial decree and also mean and [dutch mumbling], as we call it in the Netherlands. Um, basically the main difference here is that just simply the Public Procurement Act already notes that there will be a guide book and that this guide will have binding force.

Marta Andhov [00:12:28] Okay.

Willem Janssen [00:12:30] So I think that’s in this case, without getting too nerdy about clauses to get geeky.

Marta Andhov [00:12:35] No, no, but I get it. So it comes from the act. Actually act and exactly introduce it includes a reference. But before we go any further, and I might ask you for some of your kind of more opinions around all of this, I think it’s also fair to to to give you a chance to to on the one hand side acknowledge the great participation in the saw the committee around this guide. To do that you have to also for an academic a grade recognition of your achievements. But also I’m guessing you kind of need to provide a certain disclaimer at this point.

Willem Janssen [00:13:09] Yes, of course. So before we start buckling down on the contents. Yeah. Um, in, in September, I was appointed as chair of the advisory committee. And  what happened throughout the course of time is we have this writing group, but because it became a ministerial decree and because the Minister wanted to keep this writing group involved, but because of it becoming binding, the position of this writing group turned into an advisory committee, and the advisory committee can advise on changes of this proportionality guide at their own discretion. But also if the Ministry would ask such and such an advisory opinion. And from September onwards, I’m chairing this committee. What we’re seeing, though, from this this committee is that there’s also a lot of discussion in other member states about this guide, which I thought it would be interesting to to just discuss this today. But obviously, when we discuss it, I’m not representing the committee in any sense as me as an academic, but I just wanted to be honest and also disclose that there is that I’m also involved in this guide myself.

Marta Andhov [00:14:29] Yeah. Which is also a congrats again, I think it’s a great recognition. So you have your hands on sort of in this area, which is I think really great. Okay. So let’s then we learned a little bit kind of what it is, where it comes from, how it is related to the general procurement law that it has the binding power. The only other question around the binding power that I wanted to ask, is it binding on all levels to everyone or is one of those acts that is, you know, only to central government and so on?

Willem Janssen [00:15:02] So in the beginning, when it was discussed in Parliament, there was a bit of confusion about whether utilities, you know, entities active in the utility sectors would also be included, but they’ve been explicitly included. So it applies to all contracting authorities. Mm hmm. Active in that. They would also be falling under the Dutch Public Procurement Act. When you say binding, because we’ve mentioned the word a couple of times already, it’s binding, but it’s something that’s taken a bit of flight, I think, in a lot of Dutch. Legal areas. It’s this thing that we started to call, comply or explain.

Marta Andhov [00:15:40] Yeah. Oh, I love that. Because for me, you know, from  my legal culture, that’s not binding. If you cannot sort of challenge an accord, there is no sort of how is that binding? So that’s that’s lovely. We have kind of as you know, I think in context of something different in Denmark also, there are some of this comply and I think in many member states, a version of that arise, particularly also around Division two lots and things like that. So yeah, so what that means then this complain and explain because does not do hijack your your your line of thought but in practice what we hear time and time again right now in context of this is explain if you didn’t apply it is that unfortunately it can be the blueprints of explanation are being created and just being submitted. So I just wonder, before we go more into detail, have there been any did you aware or you discuss with your colleagues anyhow, have there been any actual sort of follow up on situations when this explanation was not enough or not provided to enough of a detail?

Willem Janssen [00:16:52] Yeah. So in general we see maybe one step back. So the system is the rules. I don’t know, but I’ll come back to your valid point. The system is you comply and if you don’t comply with the rules of this, this guide, you need to motivate. Right. And the concept of that is, is that also procurement is not stagnant. It’s you in this sense of proportionality. It’s not one size fits all. Sometimes there’s some general rules that you can come up with, but it’s also about tailor making procedures to which many of these rules would be relevant and useful and should also be applied. But there are also cases in which it’s very relevant to deviate.

Marta Andhov [00:17:38] Right. Yeah. That’s.

Willem Janssen [00:17:39] Explain why you won’t be doing that. Mm hmm. So that’s that’s the system. And when you mentioned also like division into into lots, that’s also in the Netherlands we have that and you see the same there is that it’s litigated you can take it to court but particularly in in terms of that division into contracts, the main discussion point there is okay if you just state that, you know, we took this into account, we considered all the relevant aspects, but we’re not going to do that. Mm hmm. That’s, I think, a separate debate from the from the guide. Okay. Because when you look at the guide, the general impression in the public procurement world, including lawyers, including public purchasing bodies, professionals, the market, it’s well received. And and that means that it’s had an impact in practice. The courts have also worked with it, of course, because they’re binding rules and the courts use it for their interpretation of cases. Right. And to to provide solutions for cases. So even though comply you explain has that aspect right and sometimes it can it can raise alarm bells where you think like this is not a binding law. They can deviate. But I think one of the prerequisites then is, is that the the communal forces of public of the public procurement context want to apply it and see value in applying it.

Marta Andhov [00:19:07] Yeah. So I think it’s worth of underlying that there is English version of the guidelines. Right. Yeah. So we would make sure to somehow target also somewhere in our episode sort of structure on our website. So go check it out. But the reason why I mentioned it is because I had a chance to obviously look through it. And from that perspective, I think why it might be that as welcome is because it, so to speak, puts a bit more bones on the legislative corpse if if we kind of can describe it in that way. So I think it’s sort of helpful, right. Is assisting in decision making process. So that’s probably also why that is so. So can you done that and got us a little bit through what is actually in that guide, what we will find in that guide.

Willem Janssen [00:20:05] So you will find in general rules, I think I should say so. But those are also copies of what the Dutch Public Procurement Act says. So the binding rules that are already in the Procurement Act, there’s context to what that would mean in terms of proportionality and then the specific rules for shifting. And if we’re if you wanted to, if you allowed to get geeky, also get geeky, it’s also one of the first. Or the first, I should say, acts that was published in the Dutch Gazette, which announces new rules that is in colour.

Marta Andhov [00:20:49] Yeah. The traffic lights, right?

Willem Janssen [00:20:52] Exactly. So really, like, it’s not just the colours in the box. It relates obviously that it wasn’t necessarily written from the get go as something that was to be published in the Gazette.

Marta Andhov [00:21:06] Or as a law law. Really? Right.

Willem Janssen [00:21:09] Exactly. So you see general rules also, I find and it’s a very interesting exercise as well, is because  much of the text is far more accessible to practice. It’s because it’s written as a guide and not as something that lawyers have pondered over for years and months and have tried to buckle down on each word. Right.

Marta Andhov [00:21:34] And it’s almost suggested that probably in writing that other people than lawyers have been involved. Right. That it is actually user-friendly.

Willem Janssen [00:21:44] Perhaps. And I’m not saying that all laws are not user friendly or that this that the guide is not discussed and that there’s questions that have come up about interpretation before the courts. But it’s interesting to see how this has changed practice and that these are a very different way of ultimately legislating has come up in the in the Dutch and Dutch context. When you talk about traffic lights, maybe what we could do is also because what I’d love to hear from our listeners from this episode is also what they think of this guide, of course, but also if it helps them in their own context or if it leads to  discussions or if it wouldn’t fit in practice, then because I think what would be interesting is also the question, is it just the EU legislator that makes the rules that then trickle down onto the member states and that we just have to accept? Or could it also be that national rules inspire EU law, other member states. You see some type of convergence there sometimes.

Marta Andhov [00:22:51] I think was the case for I don’t you think that that’s the case. I think that that you have all these various networks of, you know, central purchasing bodies and I’m aware of a European network of food procurers and so on. So this sort of at least practices of and I think the practices very often are also about interpretation, right? So you you see time and time again that, you know, you would say something like I think first time that I heard about, you know, seasonality in food procurement, someone did not know that different. That will be localism. You cannot do it. And then you hear someone else interpreting the rule and sort of showing how you can make that criteria objective and have a verifiable and so on, so forth. So I think that for sure. So who knows, maybe we will get a more guide, European Guide on proportionality inspired by Netherlands and your practices. But can I?

Willem Janssen [00:23:49] Who knows? I mean, so sorry, just one more thing about this also, because I think it’s like even if it’s I’m not necessarily advocating that there should be a European guide. Right. But you know if it happens interesting more to for us to discuss I suppose but also this the the national experiences that can also shape or at least new rules on the EU level. So you and I have also been heavily involved in discussing mandatory requirements in a sustainability context, and this is also one of the solutions that’s been posed right in the in the forthcoming book that Roberto Caranta and I have been editing. Fredo Schotanus, a colleague and Ruben Nicolas  also advocate for this. Right. They basically say the rules shouldn’t be too binding when it comes to sustainability. We should have a comply or explain provision when it comes to sustainability. So in a way, what could be interesting is to also gather and this is purely selfish because I would be very interested to see how this works in other Member states is like, what are really the effects? It seems to be going well for the proportionality guide, but what are the effects of comply explain in other member states?

Marta Andhov [00:25:04] Yeah, like I’m saying, the one that I kind of heard when it’s a little bit more on more negative side is the and that’s where I mean the sort of requires a little bit more enforcement or a revision is the in certain areas and certain sectors in particular member states or local sort of scene of procurement, you have the situation that you just kind of develop a blueprint of a clause saying, yeah, we consider that, yeah, we can apply it type of thing and. I think that this type of approach, you know, if if you get something like that, I guess it’s maybe not the best, but it’s also probably depending what it considers. Right. I’m in general, I’m not a fan of the rules being overly prescriptive and sort of tying the hands of the contracting authority. So I think that that needs to be trust in the fact that they know what they’re doing. But we, of course, also need to somehow counteract the the or sort of secure against the bad behaviours. The last maybe words in regards of the on the general discussion because we mentioned this traffic lights twice right now. Can you just I mean two or three sentences explain to us how that is used in the guide and for what purpose.

Willem Janssen [00:26:30] Yes. So um, maybe to also bring like the guide a bit more to, to life because we’ve talked a bit about how it came about. The structure is, um, and this traffic light or stop lift aspect is, doesn’t really do it justice because and I’ll explain that in a second. But if we look at see rule 3.4 A right it’s a one that’s been discussed in Dutch practice quite a lot and basically that rules states the following. And I know I’m never allowed to read anything out loud, but I’m going to do it anyway. Um, it states the contracting authority shall review per contract which procurement procedure is suitable and proportional, whereby it shall in any event, take account of the following aspects. So when choosing a procedure, you need to look at the size of the contract transaction costs for contracting authority and the tender number of potential tenders desired end results, complexity, type of contract, characteristics of the market. And so these as a rule, Dutch contracting authorities need to take into account these criteria. Mm hmm. Now, to assist in this, the value of the contract or the size of the contract also matters. Right. Yeah. So that’s where this colour scheme has been put into the guide. And basically it means that when we talk about financial value, the the there’s a a green bit, an orange bit and a red bit in which it seems that in a for a value under 30,000 you can use a direct award.

Marta Andhov [00:28:08] Okay. Yeah. And that’s kind of commonplace.

Willem Janssen [00:28:11] Exactly. Mm hmm. But again, and this is what I should stress, because there’s often also confusion in practice on this, is that it’s merely an indicator. Hmm. Right. Again, it’s comply or explain. All these criteria need to be taken into account the these aspects. And that’s why I don’t necessarily like the traffic light analogy, even though I understand it because it has the colours, the red doesn’t. If you can explain it based on all the factors, perhaps the red could still be okay.

Marta Andhov [00:28:39] Yeah, I understand what you mean. But at the same time it’s, I think, a good sort of visuals of indicator because we will be talking about, you know, visual aspects of public procurement sometime soon and giving a bit of a spoiler here.

Willem Janssen [00:28:53] Visual contracting, right? Yeah.

Marta Andhov [00:28:55] Yeah. And, and I think that the sort of visual indication is also somehow assisting because at least it sort of should raise maybe not necessarily a flag, but awareness. Right. So I kind of the way that I see it, it’s a little bit indicative of scale of risk. Right. So, yeah, the red when the red comes in, the risk is the highest of, you know, sort of negative consequences. But as you said, it doesn’t necessarily means that you cannot do it is that you need to be quite careful in how to do it. But at the same time, is it fair to say that this is quite positive from a perspective that if you are in the green, then that somehow reassures you as a contracting authority that what you do, so to speak, decreases the level of legal uncertainty, whether your choices are adequate or not?

Willem Janssen [00:29:46] Yeah, for sure. And of course, on top of that, where most discussion is, is when the colours start to change.

Marta Andhov [00:29:54] Yeah. Yeah.

Willem Janssen [00:29:56] So there’s yeah. So there’s, there’s legal certainty but also legal uncertainty. Um, and I think the same relates to the, the second rule that I sort of highlighting it’s 3.9 A on risk allocation. It has my personal liking because I find risk allocation of cool topic plus name. I’ll also be writing about it with our third Dutch host Matanja Pinto, for your book that’s coming. I see this like picture of Oprah in my head right now. You get an edited volume, you get an added to volume. You write in mine, I’m writing.

Marta Andhov [00:30:34] So do a lot of shameless plugs in this episode.

Willem Janssen [00:30:38] Oh, well, I know we talked about this before, though, is that I do think that, like, you’ve got to put up the streamers in your own life for your own party, right? Others won’t be doing it, and perhaps and also for public engagements. So I, I tend to disagree with that. I think the word and we’re deviating a bit but like the words shameless self plug. If you do it for the purpose of like spurring debate and linking things and making it more accessible, I don’t think we should be using that.

Marta Andhov [00:31:08] But you can keep using it. It was just in the form of sort of it was intended as a notion of harmless fun, but fair enough. I understand. I understand your point. Moving on.

Willem Janssen [00:31:20] No, I feel bad for like, going into it. But anyway, so we’re talking about risk mitigation.

Marta Andhov [00:31:25] Yes.

Willem Janssen [00:31:26] And the guide says the contracting authorities should allocate the risk to the party, which can best manage the effects of the risk. Right. So is it the tenderer or is it the contracting authority that should be carrying the burden of risk? And again, this is further explicated is because the act states that at least when you weigh up risks and the allocation of it, you need to think about the chance to the risk will actually realise itself. So whether it will effectuate and the consequences of that risk and the size of it, because if it if it’s barely foreseeable, see, it’s perhaps unfair to put that on the shoulders of a tender right. And just to pass off risk to, to the contracting party. And also the question of is it insurable? And the guidance says, like there’s a common misconception that everything is insurable. Right? Because if you can insurance, perhaps the risk is not there. I mean, the risk is there, but the effect is a.

Marta Andhov [00:32:29] Relatively well managed risk. If there’s an insurance, I guess, of exactly that. Mm hmm.

Willem Janssen [00:32:35] And that has something to do, I think, with also foreseeability. Right. Because many insurers either would ask a lot of money if a risk is not foreseeable or they won’t even insure it. Right. So they’re a bit linked. And I think what’s interesting here is also this is also been assessed by the courts. And say for for a tender for youth care by the Court of The Hague. It meant that in a in in this case the procedure was struck out because basically insufficient information about the size of the care that was to be provided there was insufficient due care related to the budget ceilings. And that led ultimately also to the discussion of that. You know, this was a disproportionate division of risk because there were also unlimited damages claims that could have been could have been claimed. So what the courts actually do is they basically also and this is where it gets interesting, they they state that, you know, in the contract or the way this is set up or how this procedure turns out. This is a legitimate division of risks. Right. And ultimately, what’s interesting, I think that’s also, you know, beneficial for for the contracting authorities, not just gain access for SMEs. Right. That would be able to carry or at least the assumption would be that they would be able to carry less risk because of their size. But also it’s far more manageable for contracting authorities because, you know, they don’t run the risk that a tender or a contract goes belly up. So as you can see, and that’s I think the main takeaway is that also the the rules and the context that the guide gives get quite specific about how to tackle issues of proportionality in public procurement.

Marta Andhov [00:34:28] So to round up our main as a as a, as a main sort of, you know, subject of procurement related issue. Can I ask you the Willem, could you point out where you think the main added advantage. Very briefly of the guide, Netherlands has been for what it mainly has been praised and what is some like a one not necessarily minus, but one aspect that still sort of raises question what could be improved potentially, you know, where we can come from, from from here as the two sort of main aspects so we can round up our mean today.

Willem Janssen [00:35:10] Yeah, very good question. Actually I think ultimately is because the the, the concept and the contents of the guide have improved public procurement practices because of the way it’s set up, because of who’s written it, and because many agree that a lot of disproportionate conditions criteria are not visible in practice anymore. Mm hmm. There’s still I think. Room for discussion. And for that, I’d also like to point to a relatively recent article in Public Procurement Law Review from a colleague of mine, _______, non-related one as very important to people with Johnson as a last name at at the Amsterdam. And it’s a interesting read stretching the proportionality principle how Dutch law facilitates the participation of SMEs in public procurement. So in that sense, I think there’s also just an interesting discussion about how the Dutch way fits within the EU law context and how it relates to the principle of procurement in a broad sense. So for I’d like to just give a shout out to that article and like you said, let’s upload the or at least provide a reference to the link or the English version.

Marta Andhov [00:36:34] Yeah, absolutely. Great. Thank you so much Willem for that. And with that, we moving on to the lighter part or at least principle, a principally lighter part of our podcast, and that is the dessert. So to remind any potential new listeners, that’s where we dive into some aspect of more of our academic life more broadly then related to public procurement and having minded. It already have been mentioned also within this episode that both William and myself have been working on edited volumes, anthologies and what those are. Those are a type of book that have a sort of leading investigator that tries to sort of push the or two or three push this certain agenda to try to make a group of people come together and contribute to that book. But a majority of the of the contribution, the chapters are written by different authors. So that’s often when we see a type of comparative books in an public procurement area, when when they look on various member states and different practices, we working currently both of us on, on the new one coming, the one that Willem leads with Professor Caranta to that already have been mentioned is coming a bit sooner than the other one that I’m working on. But we thought that that can be also a good moment to try to discuss and maybe share some challenges for those who are to come into that role that it’s good to have in mind. If you want to embark on the on the journey of editing in volume, but also some good practices, what have been working in our experiences to sort of share some information that we think could be helpful if we would listen to our podcasts and hear about it before we decided to embark on those journey. So then let’s start on. Let’s positive note and finish on a positive note. So let’s let’s let’s start first with what are some of the challenges of editing volume. Would you think if you would sort of to identify maybe two or three, what are the challenges? How is it different to, you know, doing a research on your own, publishing your own book? Would you have would you had story or article? How is that different?

Willem Janssen [00:39:12] I would say two things are linked. I think, particularly as an editor, you’re conflicted between being grateful that people participated in the project and that they’re willing to commit time, knowledge, thoughts, etc. to this project, which ultimately will also benefit them. Right? Because they’re part of this project. They get a publication, hopefully at a nice publishing house. So you’re grateful, but you’re also a project manager.

Marta Andhov [00:39:42] Yeah.

Willem Janssen [00:39:43] So you want to make sure that one, the content is coherent, that things link up with each other, that there’s no double bits, right? That, you know, all the different perspectives are discussed. And of course that doesn’t need to be super defined, but you don’t want multiple chapters doing the same thing. No. Or taking the same perspective. So and on top of that, you also want things to be delivered on time. So you’re grateful, but you’re also needing to be making sure that the project comes on time and that the contents align. Mm hmm. Right. And that sometimes requires a sort of a balance of, you know, being strict but still being kind. And that’s very difficult, particularly also when you come across different cultures, different ways of dealing with hierarchies. So I think that’s something that I find is a very tricky balance as an editor, too, to start off with.

Marta Andhov [00:40:35] I think that that’s that’s spot on. I would I would very much support the points that you made. I think one of our colleagues that is in years of experience a bit older than us. She at some point mentioned, you know, editing a volume as a as an editor or co-editor is a bit like, you know, managing kindergarten. You just need to make sure that everyone’s after the first 3 minutes, still want to play the same game. And I think that that’s a kind of cute analogy because it’s true. It’s I think that from my perspective, the main challenge, particularly if you’re working on something that is quite innovative and I think that innovativeness can come from different perspective, it can be method of working that is a little bit different. I think with the project, with Roberto, the way how you went methodologically through the steps, it was a little bit different, which was great. But it was, you know, I think for many people that participate in a project probably for the first time doing it that way, or if you trying to really, you know, work on something that requires collaborative work, which means that you just not write your chapter and submitted, but there is some sort of discussion, maybe someone else externally also is to provide input that that all kind of requires that it’s not only the first, so to speak, 5 minutes of excitement about the project, but for the longer time you need to kind of make sure that everyone still is interested, is on board, sees the value of it, and then everyone needs to kind of play to the same corner know of terrible football analogy to the same what you like football? What is the thing that you kick ball to?

Willem Janssen [00:42:22] I have. Actually. I’m lost. I’m not trying to do. I don’t know. I understand very well. I can see what you’re trying to.

Marta Andhov [00:42:30] Say, and I think I’ll listen. Let’s do it that way.

Willem Janssen [00:42:33] Let’s just say in Dutch, I don’t know if you can say editing is to keep all noses in the same direction.

Marta Andhov [00:42:37] Yeah, fair enough.

Willem Janssen [00:42:38] Something like that. Yeah, but I fully subscribed to that. And I think it’s a very tricky balance. And that’s why I think also to kind of be to, to keep being kind. I think process is really important is to make sure that the process that people sign up for is very clear from the start because to be honest it is difficult and also it’s done generally. So for our book, we did it relatively quickly, but it’s still going to be about one and a half to 1 to 3 quarters of a year.

Marta Andhov [00:43:09] That it takes that.

Willem Janssen [00:43:10] This process took right from the initial invite or from. If I would take the part where we contacted the publisher, that’s even earlier. So that’s it takes quite a long time. And I find that clarity about process. What’s expected? When do you need to submit, when do you do? And also as an editor that you commit to doing quick reviews is to say, Yeah, you do it there, I do my share. So we’re really working together. Whereas you know, in the broader context, what’s what’s often difficult and I fully also empathise with this because if I’m on the receiving end right, or if I’m participating in an edited volume, it’s also then you’re more trying to balance all these things. It’s not your 100 main priority because you’re not in charge of getting the book across the finish line. Yeah, so I can I empathise with it as well.

Marta Andhov [00:43:54] Yeah. And I would just want to highlight one more I think challenge that probably is, you know. The biggest one, I think, and that is thinking before you embark on such a journey, what to do and how to handle the worst case scenario. And what I mean by that is that often you’re going to go and do those edited volumes with your dear colleagues or, you know, your heroes in your professional life and so on and so forth. And you may have a really great relationships with them and rarely, but sometimes in my happened that absolutely worst case scenario happens, which is someone committed to something and they don’t deliver or they drop out middle of sort of the way or it’s just the the the quality is not where it’s supposed to. The commitment is not there. And I think that this is extremely stressful. Also, for the first time, if you edit a volume or also if you kind of, you know, hierarchically again you, so to speak, a lower character or you’re younger than some of those heroes that you had a reasons for, that can be multiple and very many. I think, you know, transparency and good communication appears very important. But I think thinking about it ahead of time and somehow maybe creating, you know, a clear indication that within those timelines things needs to be deliver and why we agreeing to participate on that project if the things are not the you know, no one can have the sort of hard feelings if the book just proceeds without that chapter or so on. But I think that this is this is for sure a really difficult one because it can kind of if things are not thought through and some of those scenarios of cure and are not handled in the best way certain, you know, like professional relationships can suffer on this and people can have hard feelings towards each other and so on. So in that sense, it can be quite challenging.

Willem Janssen Yeah, and I think a lot of that also. If you would compare it to. I’m a firm believer that you need to be willing to walk away from anything in life because otherwise it can turn into a toxic thing. Yeah, if you’re for some reason not willing to walk away from the person that you once used to love. Right. But if the relationships become toxic, I think you should always. Because I think it also improves the relationship. Right? Because both if both of you are willing to walk away, it actually means that in an edited volume, it means that both of you will be committed to the relationship to make. So it has a different side of the coin. And I find that little things like setting expectations from the start, having a starting document that we will all commit to, so say, whether they be deadlines or we’re all going to work with these definitions, we’re all going to research these aspects and then if it doesn’t work out, no hard feelings. Look, the love was once there, now it’s not there anymore. Let’s see if maybe our love can flourish later on. Again.

Marta Andhov Yeah, but I think that this is under the very kind of hopeful assumptions. I think I saw that not working time and time again. But I think that the points that you made at going back because I promised that we’re going to finish on a positive note, which is we kind of pointed out hopefully to some of the solutions or some of the checkpoints that are good to take on board, I think for sure. One of the things I think that makes our working relationship but also our friendship really make work with Willem is that we both quite OCD kind of organized people.

Willem Janssen Speak for yourself! Ha-ha

Marta Andhov And I think that that actually works quite well for edited volumes when you have a lot of structured, a lot of kind of guidelines, kind of follow up on things on a fairly regular basis where you kind of keep that engagement of the contributors. So, I think that’s a good thing On good practice or general, just also positive. I think that there are also opportunities depending how the edited volume comes to life because sometimes you have call for papers and you already have a certain submissions and things are fairly developed. So maybe some other things, some other of the challenges that we mentioned are not applicable here. But also if you kind of have a creative freedom in the sense that you invite who you want to work with, that also is a really nice aspect of this because it kind of gives you a chance to work with all the people that you really want to work with for all the different reasons. 

Willem Janssen You’re funny. That we should start with the negative, because it kind of made me feel like do I even like it? But I think doing like an edited volume has its struggles and its barrels and it’s a long project. 

But I think if I really enjoy it, it’s because it’s really, to a certain extent one of the very few moments where we’re actually engaged in team science. It’s not just about you. You’re part of a bigger project. You’re right together and it’s also about the way you set it up. So I would always suggest having at least one workshop where you come together. Of course, there can be mitigating circumstances of the climate, travel cost, all these differences, they need to be taken into account. But if possible, come together. Sit, talk about the text, make it come to life and of course you can do that online and in a hybrid setting. But I find that’s really useful to bring people together and to actually not make it this distant thing of like oh yeah, I’m also working on this book that really doesn’t spark any happiness in me. 

Marta Andhov But I think that’s what it is. And we kind of going over time. So listeners, forgive us. Last we will try to wrap it up. I think my main thought is that if anyone would at any point look on over the last two, three years of my publication list, you will see that I think with exception maybe of one or two, all of them are co-written. 

And that is to say that yes, any type of form of collaborative work has its challenges. But I think that the benefits, at least for me personally, really sort of tilted the balance of the scale because it’s not anymore this lonely thing, this sort of thing that you are only with your thoughts. It actually sparks joy. It brings a lot of fun times and enjoyment of work.

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