The Municipality of Frederiksberg receives international award for a procurement process, advised on by DLA Piper

This year's Innovation Procurement Award

Procura+ Awards, which every year reward sustainable public-procurement approaches, are managed by ICLEI, an international network of 1750+ municipalities and regions. This year's Innovation Procurement Award was given to the Municipality of Frederiksberg, the first in Denmark to apply the innovation-partnership procedure in connection with an urban development project.

During the project, the Municipality had been collaborating with private players in order to develop innovative solutions to protect the town from future flooding. In connection with the completion of the procurement process and the implementation of the innovation partnership, the Municipality was assisted by the innovation design firm Innoba and DLA Piper Denmark.

Procurement of an innovation partnership on rainwater management

Like other municipalities in Denmark, the Municipality of Frederiksberg has had challenges in managing large quantities of rainwater at times of cloudbursts. The Municipality wanted a flexible and adjustable overall solution to manage rainwater in densely built-up areas, combining development, construction and operation. At that time, no such solution was available in the market.

The flexible procurement procedure innovation partnership enabled the Municipality to bring together the procurement, innovation, purchase and construction of the desired solution to be developed in collaboration with private players.

What is an innovation partnership?

An innovation partnership is a new procurement procedure, which was introduced by the Danish Public Procurement Act 2015. An innovation partnership is a flexible procurement procedure allowing for the conclusion of one or more long-term innovation-partnership contracts for the purpose of developing and subsequently purchasing innovative products, services or construction works without there being any need to arrange a separate procurement process for such purchase.