UKUPC is looking to recognise outstanding achievements of our members and suppliers in their procurement activities. We will be holding a Procurement Awards Ceremony during the UKUPC Conference taking place on 6-7 September 2023. It has long been felt that we do not trumpet the successes of our profession as widely as we perhaps should, and this is an opportunity to recognise the outstanding successes of our members and suppliers. The awards are open to all members of UKUPC with the winners announced at the UKUPC Conference in September, as well as through UKUPC and your consortia communications.

Unlike other awards, entry is completely FREE. The submission process is simple and requires minimal effort. There are no financial prizes, but the admiration of your peers would more than make up for this with the subsequent marketing of the award outcomes telling a good story for you both internally and externally.

Award categories

1. Outstanding Procurement Initiative by a UKUPC member
This can be either for your institution alone, or where you have partnered with others. The outcomes should be commercial/value for money outputs, though not necessarily just financial. Which achievements are you proudest of in the last year?

2. Outstanding Responsible Procurement Initiative by a UKUPC member
We are looking for any project or initiative where a member has delivered outcomes in social value, carbon emission reduction, EDI, or modern slavery projects for their organisation, or where they have developed and shared best practice nationally. Potentially it could be a project with a partner, or maybe an NGO such as Electronics Watch or the Social Value Portal for instance.

3. Outstanding Collaborative project by a framework supplier*
This award is to recognise UKUPC supplier-led projects that delivered or continue to deliver innovation or positive impacts through partnerships with UKUPC members. This could be through providing either value for money outcomes or social value/sustainability initiatives, or even both.

*N.B. Should a framework supplier be shortlisted for the award, in order to attend the Conference Dinner and Awards ceremony, they will need to be an exhibitor at the UKUPC Conference.

The submissions process

Submissions are sought from UKUPC Members for awards 1 and 2 and from Members or Suppliers for award 3.

To submit your initiative, please complete this UKUPC Procurement Awards 2023 Submission Template.

These should be sent to Don Bowman, Director at LUPC by 7 August 2023. 

The award process
The awards will be voted on by your peers in the sector, rather than by a voting panel. We will be using the Conference App to collect the preference votes from delegates; the projects will be anonymised to delegates. To get these to a manageable number for the App, a maximum of three projects for each award category will be taken forward to voting by delegates at the Conference.

The decision on which projects are to be shortlisted, will be agreed by the Chair of the UKUPC Board, Julie-Ann Garton, and Ashley Shelbrooke from HEPA.

The winners, voted by Conference delegates, will be announced at the Conference dinner on 6 September where the Awards will be presented.

Timetable

Closing Date for submissions:     7 August 2023

Shortlisting completed:               30 August 2023

Delegate voting opens:                4 September 2023

Winners announced:                    6 September 2023

We do hope you will consider putting forward your organisation, and possibly a supplier, for the awards. 

Please feel free to contact  Don Bowman - if you would like to know more.

Don’t forget to book your ticket for the UKUPC Conference 2023 – early bird rate closes next week on 21 May 2023! UKUPC members - Book your place here. Full members of LUPC can contact Suzanne Picken for the discount code for their free ticket.