Willem Janssen [00:00:00]

Welcome to Bestek, the Public Procurement Podcast. Today, Marta and I are talking about food procurement and tracking research progress.

About Bestek [00:00:14]

Welcome to Bestek, the public procurement podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Willem Janssen and Dr. Marta Andhov discuss public procurement law issues, the 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.

Willem Janssen [00:00:38]

Hola Marta!

Marta Andhov [00:00:40]

Hello. Hello.

Willem Janssen [00:00:42]

So, there we are again, talking about food today. How excellent opportunity. I mean, I really tried to make the link in the in the previous episode about the Didam case, that Dutch case that we discussed, that it was about supermarkets. And you buy food in supermarkets. And we’re trying to make this about, you know, a bit of a love of food and conferences after. So today, you totally nailed the topic. You suggested food procurement. And I was like, yes. Bestek, cutlery, food. Perfect.

Marta Andhov [00:01:09]

It just fits like a glove.

Willem Janssen [00:01:12]

I mean, maybe we can stop here. I mean, we’re done for the day. Let’s crack open a bottle of wine and just, you know, start the evening, even though it’s 3:30 here at the moment. But anyways. Well, we won’t do that. Let’s for food procurement. And that’s our main for today. It’s also part of a bigger research project that you’re involved in. And I’m sure you’ll tell us a bit more about that later on. We’ll be looking at food systems, why it’s important to talk about food and the issues of sustainable food procurement, particularly, because the aspects of localism play a strong role in that. So that’s a bit of a teaser for our main and for our dessert. We’re looking at one of the suggestions that we got from Twitter. I think this one was from Twitter. And it’s about tracking your research progress. And the question that was raised really was, okay, I’m working on something, how do I know – I suppose that’s how I interpret it – how do I know if I’m on track or and perhaps the follow up question, how do I make sure that I’m happy with that progress? But that’s perhaps my follow up. But yeah, let’s go for main first. Sometimes I think we should be a bit cheeky, and we’ll start with the dessert, but that’s maybe for another episode. Let’s go for the savory first: food procurement. Perhaps you could start off by telling us a bit more about the research project that you’re involved in right now.

Marta Andhov [00:02:41]

Yeah. So, one of the reasons how I got into looking into food procurement is thanks to this really interesting project that I’m part of. It’s a multi-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary at the same time, a project called Cocoreado and is focusing on connecting consumers and producers to rebalance farmers position. It’s really interesting variety of different disciplines. To be honest, I’m the only lawyer in this sort of team. It is scary because you’re always perceived as the no person. It’s not fun, you know, because you always say, Oh, great, but no. So, this is a little bit tricky position to be in. But I think at the same time, it’s kind of important to have a legal perspective because to be honest, in regards to research in area of sustainable food procurement, there’s a fair bit of reasons from different disciplines and a lot of the suggestions and recommendations that they touching upon procurement. To be very honest, it’s not very practical because under existing rules you cannot just do that. So of course, then you could argue for a very normative approach to research where you would change the law. But I think that where the value much more lies in is trying to focus on suggesting solutions and practical approaches to really operate within the framework that we have. So, within Cocoreado, there is a variety of different work packages. One of those work packages is specifically on sustainable food procurement. What are the good practices, what are their legal constraints, what you can do and how you can do it. And that’s a little bit when I come into place with my research and I have fantastic collaborators, particularly two people that I’ve been working extensively on. It is my colleague Leena, who is also with me on project from Copenhagen here, and also Bettina, who is a procurer for the municipality of Copenhagen, someone who has very extensive experience. So, some of the examples that I’ll be using during today, I cannot take credit of them. Those wonderful ladies have been using them in practice and been so kind of sharing them with me and they bring a lot of interesting food for thought. So, this is a sort of one angle and another angle, which I think that I would want us to start with today is really kind of talk a little bit about problems with food system broadly that we have. We all have opinions about food, right? And we all have very close connections to food and then strong opinions about food. And food, I think, is such a fantastic thing to talk about procurement, because if we talk about, you know, construction technologies, IT, or some other things, it can feel very withdrawn from our day to day and procurement can become very technical. But when we started to talk about food, I think everyone can kind of relate in logic. A lot of logic lying behind food is something that we can all relate to.

Willem Janssen [00:05:55]

So, basically infrastructure projects don’t end up in your mouth, they don’t have flavour. It’s hard to imagine it. Whereas food systems, or at least the food that ends up coming out of the system is very relatable. Perhaps I can make it a bit sharp, and I say, maybe I’ll flip it because you wanted to talk about problems, but what would be the price of an unsustainable food system? And maybe that you can kick off with that.

Marta Andhov [00:06:19]

Yeah, for sure. So, I think that the main problem with the food system and also procurement of food is that this is one of the sectors that has the highest indirect cost that we cannot really account for in a very straightforward matter. So, what is the price of a sustainable food? Well, if we look at it from an environmental and climate perspective and the consequences we dealing with things like drought, we dealing with things like heavy rain, forest fires, floods, etc., etc.. So, there’s very, very close connection between monocultures and between how the sort of industrialized agriculture and food production affects, for example, environment and climate change, but also the loss of biodiversity. That is a way too much of this monoculture, what we would describe as monoculture in our Western diets. And that ultimately leads to problems with health, such as diabetes and overweight. And those are all this type of indirect cost because the cost of malnutrition, the cost of, you know, the health consequences of us feeding our societies in the in a very poor way are the costs that ultimately, again, government at some point picks up. Right. If we’re talking about European countries where you have kind of access to health care and in a public, sector way, because if you have those problems, you will need to deal with it with the with the doctors, hospitals and etc. And then also there is a question of or the cost of not evenly distributed food. So, this in inequality in health and life expectancy and how this is very closely connected with inequality. So, you know if you have a school that buys the cheapest possible food and this is the type of food that, you know, you would not want your child to ultimately put today mouth. If you are, you know, a mid-higher societal class, you would just pack food for your kids, and they would have the good food for lunch at school. For those who are coming from vulnerable economic circumstances, there are disadvantage and that might be the only meal the particular kid has access to is the sort of, you know, public voucher school meal. That’s the only meal that they getting per day. And the nutritional value of that is zero. Because actually what is really also disheartening that when you starting to really look into food procurement, when you really realising how this very economic cost-efficient approach that we have in public procurement, what that means to the type of food that you get and what you buying. And then when you realising what you’re buying, I was absolutely shocked. I was absolutely shocked to see what type of things are being bought. So, this is really, you know, the cost of the unsustainable food system. And, of course, here, what’s the role that public procurement plays? Well, we have this theme that continuously comes during our episodes in this podcast, which is that governments and public institutions have this purchasing power, and that can affect and sort of nudge and incentivize in particular direction to market through how they design their procurement and what they ask for. And this sort of relationship on the one hand side between the negative costs of the current food systems and the instrumentalization of public procurement has been acknowledged broadly, I would say globally by different stakeholders. So of course, one of the sorts of strategy that very clearly showcases is the European green deal with within which we have the farm to fork strategy to discuss the notions of food, potentially introducing mandatory minimum requirements in context of sustainable food.

Willem Janssen [00:10:39]

That’s what the European Parliament called on. Right.

Marta Andhov [00:10:42]

Exactly.

Willem Janssen [00:10:44]

I think it was December last year where there was a call from Parliament saying there would be a need to do so, right. So, to introduce those particularly the focus was on schools, whereas in the Netherlands that’s less relevant. I think that’s also culturally depicted if schools provide food or lunch, but catering services might also be affected by that. So, I think that will be a call to action to listen to some of our previous episodes, eight and three, perhaps to listen a bit more about the move towards mandatory criteria. But you were talking about the growing recognition.

Marta Andhov [00:11:24]

Yes, this is one of the aspects. Right. And of course, what we also need to acknowledge is as a sideline note to this, that food is also particularly regulated. So, in certain jurisdictions, also sort of particular type of food procurement, such as for schools or hospitals, they are kind of excluded from the application of some of the procurement rules because they have a particular regulation. So that’s also something to have in mind. And then on a global scale, because this is obviously a very global problem. This is not just a European problem, but on a global scale. The upcoming unit Global Review 2022 of Sustainable Public Procurement actually very clearly showcase that over the last years the importance of food, focus on food within procurements, developing criteria within food, etc., etc. really jumped quite high in a priority of organizations. So, I think that this all leads us to really conclude or really acknowledge the importance of this particular sector for our day to day sort of strategies regarding procurement and where the focus really will lie to certain extent.

Willem Janssen [00:12:37]

So, we’re talking about food systems and unsustainable food systems. I suppose public procurement has a role to play, an important one. Like you say, it’s that’s also being it’s recognition is growing. Right. When you look at all these international agreements or the food procurement criteria on the EU level, like you mentioned, the farm to fork strategy, green deal, and perhaps we’re slowly moving towards some more legal discussions as well. But perhaps you could now highlight why sustainable food procurement is such a delicate subject as well.

Marta Andhov [00:13:17]

Yeah, because I think that this is a very good question because it ultimately frames our legal discussion here and why there are legal problems and why there is, I think, a certain need to really lift the level of awareness of how you can do sustainable public procurement of food and the sort of delicate or controversial or sort of point of tension when it comes to discussion of sustainable food procurement is twofold. First of all, is a term of local.

Willem Janssen [00:13:49]

Oh, the daunting word in like instantly breath when I talk to my students about public procurement, I say, if you ever see a mentioning of a member state.

Willem Janssen [00:14:04]

He or she who must not be named: local. It’s a done deal. Yeah. Instantly red flags. But yeah. Keep going.

Marta Andhov [00:14:10]

Yes. So, you know, we start out as procurement experts, we know, right? This is the first thing that you like. Woohoo! Nope, nope, absolutely not. But if I would ask you to just quickly Google, you know, sustainable food procurement or food procurement, anything. I would make a very bold claim that, you know, 9 out of 10 guidelines is recommendations that you come across first buy local. And now this is, of course, again, a specificity to our European market. But I dare to say that this applies more broadly because I don’t think that in our terms of European procurement rules, this is not allowed, it’s prohibited. But even if you look in other circumstances, so even if we would talk about, you know, under the threshold procurement, small procurements, that you could have an option of asking for local. I don’t think that asking for local is anyhow leading you to sustainability because something can be local, but it’s not sustainable. And I know that we had at some point actually filmed this conversation. I don’t know if you remember, but we talked a little bit about food and you sort of laughed that. Yeah, if you kind of kind of pick up your own carrot that you can have from, you know, your garden and that’s obviously will be most presumably the healthiest. Oh, this is very intuitively something that we that we conclude. Right. But there is this brilliant example, and this is a little bit of a example to our conversation, but also a sideline of experience is when you kind of think that you’re saying something smart, but not really.

Willem Janssen [00:15:42]

I wonder if this is in reference to something I’ve once said?

Marta Andhov [00:15:45]

No, no. This is something that I actually said. So, there is this classic example of showing sustainable food on an example of tomatoes. Right? And the example is goes that you sort of say, well, if you’re going to grow a tomato in greenhouses somewhere in, let’s say, Denmark or even Norway, somewhere north, really. The amount of energy and resources that you will need to really produce said it will be really unsustainable. It’s not really good for from broadly understanding the environment. It is much better and is much more sustainable if you consider that. Actually, it’s it’s a tomato that has been grown, you know, is sort of under natural sunlight of, you know, southern Italy. And then it’s delivered to you through, you know, let’s say rail or even, you know, trucks, anything else than planes. And this is the sort of very traditional example to showcase that local not necessarily mean sustainable. And then I had a workshop on this on the COCOREADO Project with one of my colleagues that really works on sort of tracking the life cycle and building the life cycle to really sort of actually kind of science of creating the patterns of what something is sustainable or not. And he sorts of highlighted to me that this is actually used as a very traditional example, but it’s not necessarily true. Because some of those green houses, if they have really, you know, like a circular loop of refreshing the water and filtering the water and the energy comes from renewable energy and is really like a closed loop that that solution actually might be much more sustainable than what we traditionally say about this, you know, very natural production, let’s say, of tomato of south Italy, because also this will be a form of quite industrial production already. So, there will be some sort of forms of energy use on them, too. So, this is just to showcase that this is, you know, not very obvious topic.

Willem Janssen [00:17:54]

We need to be sharp when it comes to coining something as sustainable and just assuming that local equals sustainability. It can go a lot of ways, but we need to be sharp on that.

Marta Andhov [00:18:05]

And also additionally, you need to, in a quite specific terms, even before you go into procurement, define what sustainability is because it needs to be somehow measurable, quantifiable. You need to you need to be able to operate within these quite formalized structures that we have. Right. So, this sort of idea of, you know, tomato in southern Italy under sun, it’s sort of…

Willem Janssen [00:18:28]

It sounds appealing, though, still, but yeah.

Marta Andhov [00:18:29]

Yeah, but it’s not really something that ultimately on the example that I gave can lead you to quite wrong assumptions. Right. And the second layer to that before we been sort of going away from this, but also why this is a bit controversial or a hot topic or point of tension very briefly is also the very often we also entering a space of discussing a social aspects of procurement, and that is the role of farmers and the notion that, you know, we should encourage we should promote participation of farmers within our public procurement, etc., etc.. And of course, here, the point of knowledge that we have to share as procurement specialist to policy developers or activist within this field or market broadly is this notion that we need to distinguish between the fact that procurement ultimately focuses on what the offer is, not from who the offer comes. Right. And there are certain limitations that are that are given here.

Willem Janssen [00:19:33]

So, when you say involve the farmers, I can see a couple of ways where you could involve them. Is it involving them by procuring directly from the farmer or does it mean having them be a part of setting up a procedure and having them test the criteria or are those separate different things than what you mentioned because you kind of focused on perhaps them being a sustainable farmer, and that’s something that we don’t necessarily focus on in traditional public procurement procedures in Europe.

Marta Andhov [00:20:03]

Well, I think that the notion of that is very much of trying. Similarly, as you trying to kind of lobby for local procurement, did you say, oh, you just should buy directly from the from the farmer. And I think that this touches upon about two or three relevant issues for us to consider. First of all, we cannot promote within public procurement position of a farmer, just sort of for the fact that he’s a farmer. Right. Because that would be discriminatory. So, we cannot do that. What we can do, and we can draw in and sort of parallel this competition or sort of replace the notion of farmer with small medium enterprises, and that will be equally applicable, right? So, we cannot give them a competitive point for them being the type of organisation that they are. But all we can do is design our procurement in such a way that it will be easier for them to partake in that tender, which ultimately will lead hopefully to broader competition. Right. So, this is sort of what I mean, that you cannot really give them competitive advantage by the fact that they are local, small.

Willem Janssen [00:21:07]

Okay. And that kind of touches upon also what we discussed in access to public procurement for social enterprises and citizens initiatives. I think a lot of the discussions that we touched, there’s a lot of parallels there.

Marta Andhov [00:21:20]

The question that is here that I would want to pick up your brain is, though, can we say – it’s not the fact that someone is a small producer – but can we say that we buy only directly from the producer? So, can we require or can our design focus on, you know, length of the supply chain? So would you rather say it’s like I’m not saying that I won’t local. I just say that I want to buy directly from the producer. I want to skip through the middle, you know, three chains. And I don’t care if the direct producer is in Spain, you know, Italy, France, whatever, or it’s three kilometres from my municipality. I want to buy directly from them because the notion of why I want to buy directly from them is the notion that that provides me with the most transparency. Because the information that I can obtain about, you know, how something is produced, what type of conditions are there in context of, I don’t know, health and safety for employees, etc. So, this is a question of transparency. It’s not a question of, you know, a sort of type of preferential treatment. And I’m not limiting to say only my, you know, local farmers. I’m just sort of asking for particular structure of a supply chain.

Willem Janssen [00:22:40]

I think it would be difficult to do that.

Marta Andhov [00:22:45]

Because here you ultimately, again, kind of run against the same issue, which is you then sort of discriminate against a longer supply chain. But I think that this makes absolute sense to sort of challenge for a certain level, this type of logic, though.

Willem Janssen [00:23:01]

Yeah. I think we’ll be talking about freshness of produce as well, which and I think that kind of, you know, could link with this one quite nicely, this question.

Marta Andhov [00:23:10]

Sure. So, we can actually go to it. So then if we, to sum up this point that I was trying to make, is, you know, why food procurement, what are some of the main caveats in that? What were some points of tensions? One of them is that localism plays such a big role in understanding of what is, you know, most sustainable food. And two is the role of farmers in them. Right? They sort of the social policy driver. So then if we if we acknowledge that, then the question is, okay, if we cannot use local in the design of our procurement, what are some of the methods that we could design? What are some of the consideration criteria that we could describe in designing a sustainable food procurement?

Willem Janssen [00:24:01]

And this is the yes lawyer speaking, not the no lawyer.

Marta Andhov [00:24:08]

Exactly. I showed you what the problem is. And now I will try to give you some sort of solution options or at least consideration that could be helpful.

Willem Janssen [00:24:16]

Hit us up.

Marta Andhov [00:24:17]

Yeah. So, one of the first one that you already touched upon is this notion. Okay, so there are a couple options. One is, can I ask that I buy directly from small-scale suppliers or from short supply chains? And this is what Willem sort of pointed out. And I agree that there is a certain issue here, because then you may run into challenge of saying that you discriminating against a big, big suppliers or larger companies.

Willem Janssen [00:24:52]

And I think if the supply chain is short, isn’t that just indirect discrimination? Because if a supply chain is short, you might not end or leave the boundaries of your country. But for smaller member states, it might be harder to argue.

Marta Andhov [00:25:06]

Yeah, but you know, so this is one of those examples because the part also of, you know, the small, small scale, large scale, the part of it that I’m sort of feeling very that I would want to challenge this way of thinking. You know but you’re not saying I want from my farmer or from Danish farmer or from Dutch farmer. I’m saying I just want to buy directly from a producer and that producer can be somewhere else. And you know, that in itself is objective criteria. Right. Then we, and I think what we come very often in this discussion that we have in here is this notion of indirect discrimination and how applicable it is. And I think that as a consequence of the global issues that we currently have is that it’s, you know, long supply chains and all the issues that are attached to long supply chains. This is right now a counter argument of trying to investigate to what extent you can provide a certain due diligence through your supply chain. Right. And certain transparency of your supply chain in one of the ways could be potentially buying, you know, directly from the producer. Right. Because that allows you to really ensure a certain due diligence along the supply chain. Right. But then some others that are potentially to be considered a requirement for you to make fresh food. So, for you to actually buy fresh or meals made from scratch. So, this is particularly applicable because one of the aspects that you also need to consider when you do sustainable food procurement, whether you buy it as supply, so you buy apples, meat, milk, etc., etc., or whether you’re buying canteen services. Right. Because then you kind of have two step process. When you’re buying services from canteen and canteen, the private supplier then conduct private tenders that then buy supplies.

Willem Janssen [00:27:12]

So, I think for convenience’s sake, often it would be or at least of how I look at that practise, it’s often seen as a service.

Marta Andhov [00:27:20]

Because depending on how you structure whether you have public canteens or not.

Willem Janssen [00:27:24]

Yeah, of course. Yeah. So, if I look at it. Of the delicious food they serve as the university. There was a little bit of sarcasm there, but I don’t think the university would be interested or have the capacity to buy directly from farmers because it would require them to set up their own service again, which is something they didn’t want any more. They wanted to contract it out. So yeah.

Marta Andhov [00:27:47]

Yeah. So, this is for sure also the capacity question. But then interesting question here already is another one is, you know, if you’re buying a service. Then you buying services, but then in the contract performance clauses, when you’re saying, okay, when you, my provider of services are conducting procurement for supplies, can I then require them in contract performance clauses to buy local, to buy directly from a farm, etc., because that technically is not any more, you know, sort of public procurement that’s than private procurement, but is written in public contract, right? So, this is also something that the questions are being raised right now, right on the market; is like where we can and how we can do it, right? And I’m a bit skeptical because I think that if you write it in a public contract, I’m not sure.  Another can say it is already you know, tendered. Right?

Willem Janssen [00:28:48]

So, that would diminish the issue. But I still think there’s discussion of if we’re looking for shorts, if you’re asking for short supply change or from local producers, I think, or at least some lawyers would argue then look, that will cause indirect discrimination that you’re actually just asking for local Dutch producers or Danish producers.

Marta Andhov [00:29:07]

Just in a different way.

Willem Janssen [00:29:08]

Just you’re circumventing any type of obligation you might have under the free movement rules or public procurement rules. But perhaps, you know, and this is one of the things that you also mentioned before it would certification then make it easier in this regard.

Marta Andhov [00:29:25]

Yes. So, I think one of the aspects that you could go about it and practise has been done and it’s quite successful, is use or require organic: use or require of organic food. And for that, then you can use different labels. And of course here what is important is to also distinguish between the type of labels that you can use for technical specification and which you cannot and you can use them only for award or contract performance clauses, because here you will have example of fair trade and the Dutch coffee case – we’re going to go Willem’s jurisdiction –  when the court clearly said that fair trade is absolutely allowed, but not as a technical specification, because it does not fulfil what technical specification, as you can consider is contract performance clause. So organic is one of the options. But it’s the problem with labels, of course, they are at times expensive and maybe not achievable. So, we need to investigate other ones. And I know that there is a lot to be covered within that subject and I need to stop at some point. So, I want to just jump on to that I know that in Denmark have been exercised quite extensively and a very interesting, but they bring the same questions about, you know, short supply chain, which it isn’t that sort of circumventing the rules just in other different ways. And first of them is to ask for seasonal food. And, you know, the way how this can be clearly showcased, it is a bit problematic is if you going to ask for buying things when they are in season in the country that you are buying. So, if I’m saying I want things that are in season specifically in Denmark in July, because that might be that you’re asking your own market. But if I’m requiring in my technical specification, my tender, that food is seasonal, and what I mean by that is that the food is harvested when it is in the season in the place that it is harvested in. So, the example here is, did you know that there are some apparently apples that are, you know, collected and then they are in like fridges for up to two years. And then when you buying those apples, did they long time ago been fresh. So, this is seasonal. And the second consideration is diversity when you just sort of saying asking within your documentation that you want the broadest diversity of, let’s say, apples, because apparently there’s up to, you know, 98 different types of apples and you give additional points for that diversity. And why I think that those are really brilliant always that we are discussing within this episode of, you know, trying to exercise it where my researcher head spins slightly and I’m extremely scared of even asking about that, our dear colleague Albert, because I feel that he was a no, no, no, no. Is this aspect that if you design it in a way that ultimately it, you know, indirectly creates a map of a border of your country, then I think that that’s problematic. In other words, if I’m saying I want to buy in, you know, July strawberries, and those strawberries are to be of particular type of strawberries that is predominantly a type that is, you know, present, let’s say, on Danish market. And it is to be harvested, you know, within a week time of it being fresh in the season and delivered. Then I think that when you sort of map it or also if you specifically point out particular type of apples that are in season in particular months, I think that this is very much indirectly, objectively but indirectly, discriminatory because you creating borders of your market. And I was just wondering what you think.

Willem Janssen [00:33:18]

Yeah so, I think that touches upon what we just discussed about indirect discrimination. And I think your angle of narrowing competition, when we addressed Article 18 in the directive and the principle of competition briefly before in some episodes. And I think that’s definitely also an issue that could come more from the remit of core public procurement law. Because also what’s giving right? If we focus on that and we limit our supply so much, you know, cost would go up for a there’s something to consider, but perhaps it’s irrelevant because we just want to have sustainable food systems that can be a policy choice. But that’s definitely something to consider, I think, for future days to come.

Marta Andhov [00:34:02]

Yeah. And I think to wrapped up this part I think that what I would say it’s this is a very clear example where the tension, I think for the next ten years would be. Those are objective consideration. You want fresh, you want diverse, you want seasonal for nutritional value, for all the different things that are objective. And then the question is if that objective is following from your objective also to buy sustainable food, how this is counterweight by open competition, because those at some point will be going head to head. And then the fact that you consulted the market, and you sort of consulted behind, you know, the coast, three neighboring countries etc. Is that enough? To what extent, you know, discovering a true nature of your reasoning, whether it is protection or practise or whether it is truly sustainable, really matters because I think that you cannot really get there. And if it’s that we want to have more, better food on plates, more nutritional food, to what extent we can sort of push that agenda. Now, I’m not sure whether I really provided help or actually raised 5 million other questions, but I think that those are very practical issues that currently are on the market, and it’s a very fascinating project that I’m hoping to dive a little bit more into.

Willem Janssen [00:35:32]

Well, I think you’re selling yourself short. I think these it’s been great hearing the project that you’re involved in, the Cocoreado project, if I’m pronouncing that correctly. And of course, also part of our work, what we do in this podcast, is to raise the question to get the debate going. And I think there’s some really valid questions and also some pathways to answering them already provided. So, but let’s see where this takes us. And I look forward to the research results of the project. We still have a little bit of time left for the for the dessert, and a big shout out to Ezgi one of the candidates on public procurement in the Sapiens project, who asked us when we called out what do we need to talk about for desert, about tracking research progress? And that’s how I phrased it. Perhaps I can give you the floor and kick off with that. How do you track your research progress?

Marta Andhov [00:36:29]

Yeah, I think that this is quite difficult. And I also fully understand why some of our PhD candidates maybe not struggle, but why they identify that it’s something that they would want to get a bit of help with because PhD project is also quite specific, right? You’re working for three, four or five years, depending on where you are, towards one goal. And the question is, did I do anything this week or I did not? It’s very not tangible. So, my advice is to sort of build in steps. And my first advice would be how you measure that is to do two things. First of all, create for yourself a word or pages sort of goal. So, if that is writing, you know, 500 words per day or if that is writing X amount, thousands of words per week or three pages, etc., etc., it can be a good starting point. Now, of course, it doesn’t mean that you really what you wrote is something that is going to end up in the end in your article, book chapter, a thesis, etc. But it fits several purposes. First of all, something that I have to say always to the students. You can improve on something that is already written, but you cannot improve just about having something in your head. Because there is also part about how there is a translation and sort of transferring what is in your head to the paper that sometimes takes a little bit time to figure out there are particular structures within the work. Legal academia requires language, structure, etc. So, you can always improve. So, collecting some pages and then giving it for feedback, you can improve on that way. And that’s your progress. And second thing is also developing skills, and that is writing fairly fast. Something did for way too many of us, takes way too much time and took too many years to really create that as is a skill. So, I think that this is a first thing. And a second thing also, rather than writing your to do list, sometimes I think is also very good to keep your list of what you did in particular day, because even if that is, you know, answering 20 emails and that will have your outcome in your thesis, this is something that you did from whatever reason, there are administrative requirements that you may also have teaching, etc., etc. but it’s kind of good to look at the piece of paper and say, Yeah, I actually did for a bit today. So those will be the two main sort of points that I would make. I don’t know if you apply any of those Willem.

Willem Janssen [00:39:09]

I love getting this advice because actually, as I always I still struggle with this as well. I think just to add to what you said and then maybe I’ll add one thing is what I find helpful is to write whilst I read and to never just read is also when you’re trying to get through those pages. We don’t have lab coats. We don’t have laboratories where we enter, and we do the experiments and that. So writing is experimenting for us as legal scholars, which means that and that’s why I fully agree with you when you say like just write and then, you know, you might not use it, but at least you’ve written, you know, you’re experimenting, you’ve got in your laboratory lab coat and you’re working on that. And then later we’ll talk about conclusions and hypotheses and testing them and stuff. Because, and I also think that your list that I love making lists, it makes me it makes me feel good that someone told me once I’m a red person – when you when it comes to like labelling, it just makes me feel happy at the end of the day. But sometimes they can also feel when you haven’t achieved those lists, it can be counterproductive. So that’s why I like your check of like actually thinking about, okay, well, what did I do otherwise? And I think it also links up with an underlying feeling that’s not so much about tracking it, but it’s why you want to track it. And that’s something that I’d like to add is why are you tracking? It’s also because you want to feel like you’re making progress, like you’re adding value, like you like that at birthday parties, you don’t have to say like, yeah, I’m still working on my PhD. And then they say, Oh, okay, so what did you do? And you’re like, Oh yeah, I read a book and got two references down last week, right? And that’s normal because it’s part of it. But this feeling of not being satisfied, I think, or stressing about progress. I think what, what helps me is also to realise that one our activities as academics a much broader than just simple pages. Right even though they’re important but it’s broader than that so value those aspects of your that you were part of a conference you presented a paper you put a tweet online, you engaged with an academic, you had a discussion at lunch or during coffee or you helped someone. All those things matter. That is also progress for you as a researcher and maybe not so much research. And finally is to also celebrate what seems like little milestones, and I’ve mentioned this before I think in a previous one, but I think tracking progress is also useful if you celebrate the fact that you got those two pages or you or you’re 500 words down. If the root cause of wanting to track it is to feel satisfied with what you’re doing at work, I think celebrations are also in order and that doesn’t need to be massive and big, but just proper acknowledgement.

Marta Andhov [00:42:15]

Yeah, and I think that does also connect with two more points. One is in one of our episodes, we talked about networking, building communities, mentoring, all these different things. And they all these topics are interrelated, right? Because I think also for you to really figure out whether you’re progressing, I think It’s also your relationship with your mentor or with your supervisor, and that is then connected also with you tracking whether you kind of achieve something. And those pages and those things are helpful because then you can go with something concrete to those supervisors, you can get concrete feedback. And that’s how you how you really progress. I think the sort of confusing part or misleading part is that you supposed to get a very equal sort of path of progression that you should feel. It’s always like one step forward, two step back, three step forward, five steps back. It’s interacting with others and I think also building community around you with other PhD students and sharing experiences that can be very helpful because you struggle with similar things sometimes it also can be quite intimidating because some people progress what seems to be quite faster. But it also might be just a different set of setups you might be teaching in a particular semester, or someone is more experienced because they had, you know, five years of practical experience. We are in different places, but I think it’s develop your skills to do something, immerse yourself in topic and just as long as you have something, get you going. Just share and rely on your community around you.

Willem Janssen [00:43:53]

Great. That’s awesome advice. Talking about community and all of that makes me think about the fact that, you know, there’s families waiting for us. There are other colleagues waiting. I think we should wrap it up for today’s episode. Just to briefly wrap up dessert and just discuss have it out there. Think about why you want to track progress and what you’re actually tracking, I suppose. Think about lists, but also at the beginning of the day, but also at the end of the day and much more of that. Thanks so much Marta. We’ll leave it at that. This was Bestek. The public procurement podcast.

About Bestek [00:44:39]

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