Purchasing clinics in public procurement and urban development

The aim of this paper is to present a concept of ìpurchasing clinicsî, which have been used in complex property-related purchasing processes and in urban development processes in Finland. Clinics are a systematized form of market dialogue under Finnish Act of public purchasing, which again derives from EU Procurement directive. The data used has been acquired from a database maintained by RAKLI (The Finnish Association of Building Owners and Construction Clients) and consisting of almost twenty cases, and by the authorsí participation in various clinics. As a major finding, the paper presents a successful way of improving purchasing and urban development processes and ways of implementing a clinic. The study has been conducted in Finland only, which poses some limitations when applying the findings elsewhere. However, in EU countries the public procurement processes follow the aforementioned directive and should be rather similar. Practical implications of the study consist of improving purchasing and urban development processes. The improvements are better private sector participation in procurement, shorter procurement processes and changes in formatting the procurements. Originality of the paper lies in systematic way of organising market dialogue.