Building on extensive work on sustainable public procurement over the past years, IER's Dr Eva Katharina Sarter presented a paper entitled "Hidden Debates: Public Procurement as a Venue for Negotiation", which examined the political dimension of debates on the strategic use of public procurement to foster (social) policy goals.

The invited presentation examined debates surrounding the importance of economic and social considerations in public procurement regulations at different levels and tensions and conflict arising in multi-levels contexts. It was part of the workshop "The Regulatory Governance of Public Procurement: Assessment of the Research Field and the Ways forward" held at Free University Berlin in Germany.