At the basis of the thesis will be an in-depth analysis of the principle of transparency in German and European procurement law and its possible dimensions in the procurement regime. The thesis will then assemble how the principle of transparency is expressed in the rules of procedure and determine the degree of transparency in each procedure. Subsequently, it will be examined whether the hierarchy of procedures in German procurement law and the prerequisites for their choice reflect a coherent level of transparency. The thesis will round up with building models for optimum and minimum transparency and hierarchy in and of procurement procedures, also in the light of current and constant reform on both the European and German level.

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Hermann Pünder, LL.M. (Iowa)

Dr. Xinglin Zhang was a previous member of PPRG of Nottingham University Law School. She obtained her Ph.D degree in March 2009 and is currently an associate professor of law at the School of Law, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics (DUFE).

In order to identify contractual mechanisms which appears to reduce risk and transactional costs I conduct several case studies in which I apply law and economics theories to make an evaluation of risk and transaction costs in the procurement process and in the resulting contract.

Further, the intention is to investigate if the procedure competitive dialogue can be used in order to reduce asymmetric information between a procuring authority and bidders, in order to reduce transaction costs and risk premiums due to asymmetry.

The purpose is to identify public procurement and contract solutions which decrease costs associated with the procurement of construction projects.

I am a research student at the Division of Construction Management, Faculty of Engineering, Lund University, Sweden.

Another part will analyze and comment in detail the Romanian legal framework regarding public procurement with a strong accent on practical issues. This topic will include a presentation of the general and special conditions of the public procurement contracts finance by European funds. It will also put in light their particularities issued from European law special provisions.

The last part of the research thesis will have as objective a special exam on the legal responsibility which governs the spending of the European funds. This type of responsibility has many particular aspects which offer to the state authorities a disproportionate power in relation with the economic operators.

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My thesis will cover the following topics: the scope of the most economically advantageous tender; the linkage of the award criteria to the subject matter of the contract (permited v prohibited criteria); and the use of evaluation methodologies and their disclosure. Because I have the intention of investigating the topic not only from a strictly legal perspective, but also from a practical one, this involves doing empirical work (consisting mainly of research and analysis of contract notices, contract documents and award decisions).

The purposes of my research project are threefold:
(i) to show the variety of legal solutions and procurement practices regarding the same subject under a shared European framework;
(ii) to discuss the similarities and the differences considering, on the one hand, the apparent convergence brought about by the EC directives on public procurement and, on the other hand, the apparent divergence between the national implementation measures probably influenced by the legal family each system descends from; and
(iii) to allow the drawing of lessons learnt on the legislative, judiciary and administrative levels.

I am a current research student with the Public Procurement Research Group (PPRG) at the School of Law, University of Nottingham. I started my PhD in October 2009 under the joint supervision of Dr. Ping Wang and Professor David Fraser. I had secured a Law School scholarship for my research project, but later I was successful in obtaining funding from the Portuguese Governmental Research Funding Body (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia).

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The Thesis focus on contracts whose value falls below the thresholds of the Public Procurement Directive, contracts that are listed in Annex II B of the Directive and contracts regarding service concessions.

The overall aim of the Thesis is to analyse which rules apply to contracting authorities when awarding a contract which is not covered or fully covered by the Public Procurement Directives.

The Thesis will furthermore look upon the enforcement rules and remedies regarding the above three types of contracts.

Supervisors: Steen Treumer and Jens Fejø 

The research analyses whether the general principles of transparency and equal treatment limit this liberty. It is also analysed whether the Leur-Bloem case law limits whether the legislator may permit using procedures of the directive without the preconditions arising out of the case law of the ECJ being present.

The absence of any analysis to explain the legislative choices is addressed.

The research program will deal with the procedure for setting the technical specifications and for ascertaining the equivalence among goods that - though subject to European standardization - can have relevant differences when used to produce an health-care service as to assure fair, equal and objective comparison among tenders.

Last but not least the analysis will focus on the problems arising in public procurement execution to underline the contractual clauses suitable to prevent or dispute possible breach of public procurement contracts and on the most recent evolution of health authorities' accountability for unfair awarding of public procurement as well as of contractor's accountability for breach of contract.

Research group: Gabriella Racca, Roberto Cavallo Perin, Dario Casalini, Manuela Consito, Barbara Gagliardi, Silvia Ponzio

Angela Vodden, PhD thesis, University of Central Lancashire, UK.