Public Procurement and Formal Institutions as External Limiting Factors of Design for Innovation: The Case of Innovative Procurement of Maritime Radio Technology

This paper draws on research carried out in a project devoted to studying public technology procurement1, sometimes called innovative public procurement. This kind of procurement occurs when a public agency places an order for a product or a system which does not exist at the time, but which could (probably) be developed within a reasonable period. It is a process where design and innovation are required to fulfil the demands of the buyer. Viewed as such, innovative public procurement can be regarded as an activity where collaboration and interactive learning processes are likely to take place between the procurer and the supplier(s). Typically, the procurer possesses knowledge about the functional requirements of the artefact or system to be procured that needs to be transferred to the producer. Correspondingly, the supplier possesses technical knowledge about possibilities and implementing capabilities that needs to be communicated to the procurer. In general, the design process involved here can be described neither as a linear, nor an iterative, but a fully dynamic process where the designer’s view of reality, his or her aims, and the artefact under development will interact with each other and eventually lead to the creation of a product. The finalisation of an innovative procurement projec