We are proud to announce a new member of our Urban Agenda Public Procurement Partnership:
CITY OF LEIDEN,
The Netherlands
City of Leiden is is a medium sized Dutch city with a rich history and culture . It’s a student city with the oldest university of The Netherlands and one of the leading science and research universities in Europe. Leiden upholds very high standards to make the city a great and pleasurable place to live for its residents.
This new member joined our Partnership in March 2025. Contact person is Hans Nieuwenhuys, Team Manager Procurement Advice and Tenders.
We have interviewed Hans and asked him to introduce his municipality and its role in our Partnership by answering below questions:
Why City of Leiden applied for joining the UA Public Procurement Partnership?
We continuously strive to grow and expand our knowledge and are looking forward to sharing best practices and learn from other members to achieve collective growth. Corporate and procurement social responsibility is one of the top priorities in our procurement team. Our team can learn and grow from other members which in turn has a positive impact on the residents of Leiden.
Innovative Public Procurement
Recently PIANOo and TenderNed have performed an analysis on the application of innovation-friendly procurement instruments in national and European Tenders on Tender platform TenderNed in 2024. The City of Leiden is a newcomer in the top 10 because of the application of a competition and the implementation of a pilot in the context of innovation. An article about this subject and Leidens’ achievement is posted on the website of PIANOo, the centre of expertise of the Dutch Ministry of Economic affairs. You can find this article here.
What are the challenges City of Leiden faces in terms of Innovative and Responsible Public Procurement?
Successfully implementing Innovative and Responsible Public Procurement requires a substantial amount of planning and convincing of stakeholders. Reaching our goals is often never a straight line but it requires focus and constant adjusting. Our organisation has a wide variety of great initiatives and programmes for sustainability and social responsibility. To reach our goals we must seek out the best initiatives and programmes for our procurement portfolio. One of the biggest challenges we face is to make decisions which will benefit our residents in the most positive way.
What is the added value of the Partnership for City of Leiden?
Our team will have the opportunity to gain new knowledge from other members which can be used in our procurement process and will in turn contribute to reaching the goals we have set to provide residents with a high value of living and pleasure in our city.
If you would like to know more about City of Leiden, please visit their website here.
If you would like to contact Hans Nieuwenhuys directly, please send him an e-mail: h.nieuwenhuys@leiden.nl