Public tender of policy support tasks: No worries – or what?

Is there reason to worry about the future in connection with upcoming tenders for policy support tasks or can we refrain from being nervous? There is no one who can foresee the future, so there was no crystal-clear answer to the question from the two representatives from the Ministry of Environment and Food of Denmark who attended the senior VIP meeting on November 8-9. 2017. However, we could put a face on the ministry’s officials, Kim Holm Boesen and Rasmus Ørnberg, who spoke about the underlying reasons for tendering the policy support tasks and answered various questions from the audience as well as they could.

The reason for tendering the policy support tasks is to test if the price corresponds to the product. Each scientific area of effort will be tendered in the coming period but the timeframe and order in which this will be done are not yet available. The exercise was initiated because the government has listened to critique from various stakeholders with regard to whether the products live up to their price and whether the tasks are described precisely enough.  

Erik Steen Kristensen followed up with a talk about AGRO’s policy support tasks. The provisional budget for 2017 shows that AU’s budget for the contract regarding Plant Production amounts to 133.8 million kroner distributed in eight scientific areas of effort. He also explained how the amounts are distributed between advice, research and external funding. 

Erik Steen Kristensen was optimistic with regard to how AU and AGRO will succeed when the tasks that we are responsible for are tendered. 

- We have good breadth and can cover all the scientific areas of effort in the Plant Production contract. We have a good distribution between research and advice in the areas of effort. And we have fantastically good gearing because we at AU and AGRO are good at acquiring projects – including in the areas of effort. We can therefore win the competition, he said.