The thesis “¿Quién lleva el timón? La implemenación de Contratación Pública Socialmente Responsable en el Ayuntamiento de Barcelona” by IGOP as a case highlighted by the Generalitat de Catalunya on its website on Industrial Doctorates.
Alvaro Porro, director of Social Economy and Cooperatives at Barcelona Activa, explains in an interview how a public-private collaboration with the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and IGOP allowed the incorporation of knowledge and rigorous methodology on responsible public procurement. The project has given rise to a new strategic procurement office and a training itinerary for SMEs that has been awarded at a European level.
The Thesis
For three years, IGOP doctoral student Yunailis del Valle Salazar carried out action research based on organizational ethnography (in-depth interviews, participant observation and analysis of real processes) in Barcelona City Council and Barcelona Activa. The result was the thesis ¿Quién lleva el timón? La implementación de la Contratación Pública Socialmente Responsable en el Ayuntamiento de Barcelona, which identifies the legal, political and organizational factors that condition the implementation of this model and proposes a management framework aimed at other public administrations that want to innovate in the procurement of services.
The impact has materialized in concrete tools: a training itinerary to bring SMEs and social economy companies closer to public procurement (awarded with the European Procura Plus Award) and the design of a new strategic procurement office. The industrial doctor has continued to be professionally linked to the institution once she defended her thesis.
The Industrial Doctorate
The Industrial Doctorate Plan is a public initiative of the Generalitat de Catalunya, promoted at the end of 2012, in collaboration with the Catalan university and research system, closely related to doctoral training, knowledge transfer and the development of R&D&I projects in collaboration with the socio-economic environment – companies and institutions.
The Industrial Doctorate Plan has as its essential element the industrial doctorate project: a strategic research project of a company or institution that is developed in collaboration with a Catalan university or research center, and that becomes the subject of a doctoral thesis that allows a doctoral student to acquire the training that will allow him/her to begin a research career in a dual environment: business and academic. These projects aim to respond to the challenges that the socio-economic fabric has identified as strategic for the coming years and that require the expert and specialized knowledge of the research groups to be able to face them with guarantees of success.
You can find the interview on the Industrial Doctorates of the Generalitat de Catalunya.
