Institutional and legal model for public procurement of products of Earth observation in Ukraine

Abstract

The article explores the mechanism of public procurement in the sphere of providing the remote sensing services to public entities. Authors emphasize on the benefits of the centralized procurement of remotely sensed data that will lead to cost savings of state funds through the avoidance of duplicate purchases. Authors give special consideration to the difference in products obtained within the Earth observation (EO) process, the purchase of which can be carried out according to different procedures, as well as the duality of the status of the National Center for the Management and Testing of Space Facilities (NCMTSF) as a supplier and intermediary in public procurement legal relations. It is determined that NCMTSF as a centralized procurement organization will collect requests from contracting authorities (public consumers) for remote sensing services, analyze them for the possibility of satisfying it with products from the existing own fund or the need to purchase remote sensing data. It is argued that in case of impossibility to provide relevant services from the available resources of the remote sensing fund, but economic feasibility of purchasing raw remote sensing data, considering the consolidated application of public consumers, NCMTSF will act as a centralized procurement organization. It is emphasized that, unlike other centralized procurement organizations, the procurement contract with the winner of the procurement will be concluded by NCMTSF. NCMTSF will provide free of charge public authorities, enterprises, institutions, and organizations with raw data information products which were purchased at the expense of state budget according to their requests. It is suggested that in case of impossibility and economic inefficiency of providing data processing services, NCMTSF as a centralized procurement organization organizes procurement in the interests of public consumers. The procurement contract is concluded between the public consumer and the winner of the procurement. That is, in this case, the NCMTSF performs an intermediary function of procurement organization, which can professionally qualify the participants and determine the most economically advantageous tender. In addition, several procedures have been discovered that will unify suppliers’ offers according to contracting authorities’ technical requirements and optimize budget spending, that was based on an analysis of domestic legislation on public procurement and models for the procurement of remote sensing products in space states such as the USA, Australia and India. The article provides an in-depth analysis of the implementation of multi-use supplier list as prequalification system for potential economic operators of remote sensing services.