A step forward in public procurement regulation: the challenges imposed from innovation and sustainability to public contracting

Abstract: This research aims at critically appraising the connections that can be traced between the regulation of strategic approaches towards public procurement and the interest of integrating sustainability and innovation driven goals within procurement proceedings. As such, the investigation is framed under areas of research that have not acquired significant attention until recently; on the one hand, the interaction of sustainability and environmental concerns has increased at the same rate that the environmental crisis has worryingly amplified, and the study of law and technology has simultaneously gained attention as regulation attempts to keep the pace in which technology rapidly change human experience. Along these two intertwined objects of academic interest, this research will attempt to demonstrate that the synergy between public procurement and sustainability concerns may be further enhanced and strengthened by reaching out to the support that technological innovations may provide along the multiple stages of the procurement process. The investigation is thus concerned not only in identifying the advantages derived from such cooperative interaction, but also in examining the margins and shortcomings which this involvement entails