The EU Institutions should do more to help businesses find contracts on offer and bid for them, according to a new report from the European Court of Auditors. The auditors call for a cut in the red tape involved in EU public procurement and a new online platform with contracts from all the Institutions.

Over the last few years high fixed costs, and excess capacities, of IT infrastructures induced the emergence and significant growth of cloud computing, as it can readily satisfy demand for a variety of services without users having to invest heavily. Due to its nature, cloud computing has raised a number of issues such as data security and governance in the global scenario. More recently the issue of pricing strategies captured the attention of the main actors and academics. In particular the most widely adopted pricing model so called pay-as-you-go, or pay-per-use, is currently being challenged as the appropriate criterion for charging users. In the lecture the main pricing schemes will be presented, discussing their advantages and limitations.

The European Assistance for Innovation Procurement (eafip) initiative published Module 2 of its toolkit on innovation procurement.

 The second major eafip event on innovation procurement will take place in Athens, Greece at the 18th and 19th October 2016.

The European Assistance for Innovation Procurement (eafip) initiative published the first module of its toolkit on innovation procurement.

Recently a research article on standards, intellectual property and open access written by Corvers’ IPR specialist Carl Mair was published in the Utrecht Journal of International and European Law.

The European Assistance for Innovation Procurement (eafip) initiative reopened the call to apply for free assistance for innovation procurements. European public procurers who want to be one of the 12 European procurers that will receive free assistance from the European Assistance for Innovation Procurement (eafip) initiative in the implementation of their next innovation procurement can apply and register untill 30 June 2016.

DG CONNECT and GD GROWTH have commissioned a study to establish and launch a European Catalogue of ICT Standards for public procurement.

On 12 April 2016, the Public Procurement Working Group of the European Commission’s Expert Group for Bio-based Products published 15 recommendations for an increased uptake of bio-based products in public procurement programs. The report, launched at the BioEconomyUtrecht2016 stakeholder conference, states that benefits are reciprocal.

With his paper titled 'Intel, ARM and the Internet of Things: the role of IP licensing strategies in establishing platform dominance’ Corvers’ IPR-specialist and PhD student Carl Mair was nominated for the BILETA Google PhD Award.

Corvers confirmed its participation in the Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) 10YFP programme, as part of the UN Working Group 4b2 on improving collaboration between sustainable public procurement, sustainability standards and labels.

The European Commission – through her European Assistance for Innovation Procurement (eafip) initiative – in collaboration with the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Water organises a workshop on innovation procurement on the 9^th of February targeting public procurers in the water sector.

Recently Corvers was requested by UNEP and KEITI to endorse the Seoul Declaration on ‘Mitigating Climate Change through Low Carbon Procurement’.

MSM and Corvers Commercial and Legal Affairs have concluded an agreement to establish, from 1 January 2016, the Corvers Chair in Innovation Procurement at Maastricht School of Management. The Memorandum of Understanding was signed on 23 October 2015 in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the headquarters of Corvers.

The European Commission has published an announcement that offers guidelines to national, regional and local authorities to help them understand and observe the European law when purchasing resources and services on behalf of the asylum crisis.