General overview

On the 6th of December 2022, the Technical Secretariat of the High Level Construction Forum (HLCF) organised the webinar ‘Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Public Procurement – Two allies’ to:

• Announce the launch of the ‘BIM in Public Procurement’ community within the broader ‘Digital Public Buyers Platform’.
• Promote good practices within the construction sector and steer Member States to take next steps for the integration of BIM in Public procurement by means of two panel discussions: firstly, on the expectations and needs of the public sector, followed by a second panel on the needs of contractors and the private sector.

Opening remarks by the European Commission

Ms Ilektra Papadaki, Team Leader at DG GROW Unit H.1, opened the meeting. She explained the importance of bringing together the HLCF and the Public Procurement (PP) community together in this webinar, as these two communities are highly interconnected.

Collaboration through the Digital Public Buyers Community

Ms Anita Poort, Policy Analyst at DG GROW Unit C.2, announced the Digital Public Buyers Community that will be launched in February 2023 for 4 years. Ms Poort explained the three general objectives of the platform:

• To set up a distributive public procurement network among public buyers themselves and between the public buyers and the Commission.
• To establish the Commission's main channel for communications on Public Procurement tools, trainings and events.
• To connect public procurers to other relevant forms and initiatives from the European Commission, e.g., by connecting the PP and the construction communities through this webinar.

Ms Poort ended her presentation by sharing a mock-up of the platform with the audience. She explained that the platform will have three layers, i.e.,

• a first publicly accessible layer,
• a second layer where you log in with a member profile and
• a third layer - where membership and play rules are set by the communities themselves - in which all public buyers in Europe can have discussions on different topics, including one specific community on BIM.

Digital Public Buyers Community - BIM in Public Procurement

Mr Pieter Staelens, Policy Officer at DG GROW Unit H.1, gave a presentation on the specific community on BIM in Public Procurement, whose target are all teams procuring services for construction, i.e., all types of public bodies, institutions, and (private) organisations that work on PP in construction on a national, regional and local level. This community will provide the PP community with a clear repository of accessible documents, a knowledge exchange platform and a tool for the Commission to reach out to stakeholders and other Directorates-General. More specifically, the community on BIM in PP will provide a platform for sharing tools such as the cost benefit calculation handbook, strategies followed by national and regional authorities, a repository of best BIM and public procurement practices, participation of experts in activities, news items, questions, and contacts.

Panel discussion on the needs and expectations of public buyers

The following points of discussion were raised during the panel: (1) current practices regarding the structure and organisation of data in calls for tenders where the public administration requires the usage of BIM, including (2) the practices that can be implemented in smaller calls for tender by local authorities, (3) the cultural change needed to upscale BIM in the industry and (4) the role of BIM in accelerating the uptake of key sustainability indicators.

Panel discussion on the needs of the contractors and the private sector

The discussion that followed the speakers’ introductory pitches raised the following discussion points: (1) specific challenges that the private sector is facing on the uptake of BIM in construction, (2) examples of best practices, (3) the need from other professions in the construction sector and (4) the potential role of the community of practice in the adoption of BIM by the private sector.

Concluding remarks

Mr Ivo Locatelli, Team Leader at DG GROW Unit C.2, closed the session by summarising the key points of discussion, i.e., realistic public procurement, understanding the needs of buyers, the need for dialogue, mutual education, training, cultural change, guidance and looking at the right scale of projects. The high level of interaction and interest from the 82 participants, who posted several questions in the chat, shows the need to encourage discussion and clarification on the topic of BIM in PP.