Building on the Business School’s public value strategy, our new research centre focuses on delivering public value through procurement.

Our ambition is for the Centre to be internationally recognised as a centre of excellence to study the challenges of incorporating social value and wellbeing clauses into public, private and third sector contracts with a view to getting more societal benefits from sourcing goods, services and works.

At Cardiff University we are passionate about developing the future generation of procurement and supply chain professionals. We are committed to raising the profile of procurement that goes far beyond achieving economic value, to address digital, societal, and environmental challenges.

Collaborate and engage with us and begin the important conversations about how we leverage procurement to achieve positive impact and how we support procurement professionals through research, executive workshops, and other engagement activities.

Aims

Since 2015, research at Cardiff Business School has been guided by our public value ambition - to generate sustainable economic development alongside social and environmental improvement. In doing so, we’ve created an environment where collegiality, inclusivity and participation are key elements. We invite partners to collaborate with us on research where we co-create knowledge and co-produce impact in policy and practice.

The Centre will be shaped by these important activities.

Research

Our research at Cardiff University is expanding at a rapid pace with sustainability, social value, and innovation at the core of what we do, applied to health and social care, food, construction, fashion, and other categories of spend.

We will support professional development opportunities through PhDs, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs), and other commissioned research projects, inviting collaboration with the public, private and third sectors.

Executive teaching

We are enhancing our existing executive programmes to offer standalone modules and one day Masterclasses in social procurement, supply chain resilience, decarbonisation, contract management and collaborative working to name but a few.

Engagement

We will host a series of workshops, webinars, and round table discussions on contemporary issues in procurement and supply chain management. Look out for our ‘conversation starters’, a monthly series of roundtables discussions on a range of complex topics.

Mentoring

We will soon be offering procurement and supply chain mentoring support. Please email lynchj2@cardiff.ac.uk if you would like to be a mentor or receive mentoring.

Events

As part of Cardiff University’s civic mission, one of the ambitions for the Centre of Public Value Procurement is to provide a safe space for encouraging ‘difficult’ conversations where Chatham House Rules apply.

All events will be advertised on Linkedin and Twitter with the following hashtags:

#conversationstarter #publicvalue #sbarc

Conversation Starters

A new monthly programme of in person 90-minute round table discussions. These will be free to attend and open to the public. We aim to attract representatives from the public, private and third sectors who wish to engage in deep discussions to understand some of the more contentious and complex issues around procurement and supply chain management.

Each month a new procurement related topic is featured, and an invited speaker will set the scene and pose key questions for wider discussion. The sessions are carefully structured and designed in a way that everyone who attends finds benefit from active participation.

Themes include terms and their meaning, supplier engagement, sustainable (fast) fashion, decarbonisation, social sustainability and many more.

More information coming soon.

Designing a Procurement Strategy

Half day workshop on Thursday 5th January 2023, 9:30 to midday
Registration details to follow

Writing a procurement strategy sounds easy but any strategy document requires considerable thought about the values of the organisation, how to leverage procurement to deliver positive impact, and the resources available.

It is perhaps not surprising to find that the style, key messages, and the quality varies enormously. What should we include and what should we leave out? This session will be dedicated to effective design and writing of a procurement strategy to deliver greater public value.