When you are about to purchase goods or services for which the contract value is below the threshold for direct award (SEK 700 000) and no agreement currently exists, it may be possible to carry out a direct award of contract.
Decisions to carry out direct award of contract are the responsibility of the head of department or head of office.
If it is stated in an agreement (grant agreement) that you must procure, you are contractually obliged to do so even if you believe that you do not need to do so, e.g. in the case of EU-funded projects with requirements for procurement according to the Swedish Public Procurement Act. If EU funds are involved in the procurement/purchase, you must always send a procurement request.
Depending on the contract value, different requirements are set for consultation with the Procurement and Purchase Office as well as documentation of the direct award of contract:
Direct procurement when contract value is below SEK 100 000:
- You should send a request for quotation to at least three suppliers and choose the supplier that best meets your requirements
- There are no requirements to document a direct purchases. However, we always recommend that the purchase takes place in writing.
- Also check the supplier's terms and conditions so you know which terms apply to the purchase. You can often find these in the quotation or on the supplier's website.
- You are always welcome to consult your purchase with us at Procurement & Purchasing.
Direct award of contract when contract value is SEK 100 000–700 000:
Consultation must always take place with the Procurement and Purchasing Office before you complete your purchase. We assess whether a direct award can be carried out by checking how much goods or services of the same type has been purchased at the University over the financial year.
Send your request to carry out a direct award of contract to upphandling@umu.se.
In order to make a correct assessment, your request must include:
- Description of the product/service
- Funding (e.g. EU funds)
- Cost incl. the product/service, options, shipping, service, etc.
If the assessment concludes that a direct award of contract can be carried out, the process continues as below:
- You should send a request for quotation to at least three suppliers and choose the supplier that best meets your requirements.
- You must always document the purchase according to the form "Dokumentation av direktupphandling uh03". You are responsible for sending the form and relevant documentation to the Registry and Archive for central archiving. In contact with the Registry and Archives, reference must always be made to the current registration number.
- In accordance with the Public Procurement Act, documentation must be completed and sent to the archive no later than 30 days after the order has been placed.
If the assessment shows that a direct award of contract should not be carried out, an advertised procurement must take place instead. Read about how to send a procurement request here.
To consider
Keep in mind that even when carrying out a direct procurement, it is important to set environmental and sustainability requirements for the product/service to be purchased.
Does the direct procurement include the purchase of systems and cloud services? Then you always need to carry out an information classification as well as a risk and vulnerability analysis.