What role do universities have in public hiring?

The universities, let them get into everything, huh? When it comes to public hiring, they are not only buying pens and microscopes, but also go to sell their own services. That is, one day they are uploading budgets to buy computers, and the next they are presenting research projects so that some public administration hires them. Multifaceted, as who says.

And the rules ... My mother, you have to know them by heart. In Europe, that if the 2014/24/EU directive; In the United States, another different letters soup. It is not only a matter of knowing how to do science or teach, but of understanding paperwork, specifications, requirements. Because if you are wrong in a comma, you stayed out of the tender. Like that raw.

As suppliers, universities put the suit and go out to compete for research, training, consulting ... everything you can imagine. For that, they have to be up to date with the laws and know how to move in that world. If not, you don't even bother to present a proposal because they will lie down in the first review.

But be careful, they are also buyers, and what a shopping list they carry: from toilet paper to spectrometers that cost what an apartment in the center. And there the thing is not just buying cheap, but buying well. Transparency, equal conditions, and that public money surrenders. If they do not have people who know about hiring, the budget is leaving in nonsense or, worse, they end up in the newspapers for some scandal.

Of course, universities not only stay in the basics. Many have their own masters and public procurement courses, forming the next generation of experts on the subject. And the researchers, of course, spinning the matter to see how to improve the systems, do everything cleaner, more fair, more efficient.

And because now it is fashionable (and well), they also put sustainability criteria and social responsibility. That if you buy green, responsible suppliers, all that. Thus, they not only comply with the law but push companies to behave better. A little pressure never hurts.

In the end, universities are like that friend who is at all parties: they buy, sell, teach, investigate and even try to improve the world. But not to put the leg, they have to understand the game of public procurement better than anyone. If not, they end up losing opportunities, money and credibility. And that, in these times, nobody can afford.