Fair examination of tenders

Hundreds of various scientific and technical competitions are held annually in Russia, in which very decent money is spent. Of course, the leaders at the request of scientific technical products are various Federal Target Programs (FTP) and budget funds, in which there is fierce competition and no less corruption when deciding on winners. In this article, I propose to discuss the features of such competitions and analyze the original ways of organizing a fair examination of applications. Without corruption and the costs of the so-called experts.

Discord contest

In accordance with 94-FZ ( expired, new dated 04/05/2013 N 44-FZ, author's comment, thank MiXaiL27) Any expenditures of the Federal budget must be accompanied by competitive procedures. Of course, in this article I will not talk about contests for the creation of a space satellite or the construction of a nuclear power plant. I consider the fact that under such works contests are sometimes declared simple idiocy, but the law is the law. The competition must take place! Also, I’m not talking about “custom-made” (in a good sense) competitions, where R&D or R&D is focused on a specific customer, there is a very detailed and specific technical task. I propose to talk about contests where projects are requested in certain areas of knowledge. For example, competitions to support scientific research groups, FTP competitions on topics of search research or competitions of the same Bortnik Foundation, where there are no clear technical tasks, and projects are going in certain areas of activity of grantees, for example, IT, biotechnology, medicine, etc. You can also consider the so-called cluster projects within the framework of the activities of national clusters and Technology platforms, as well as smaller competitions where the originality of the idea, the authority of the performer or the approach to implementation are evaluated. All such contests have clear signs.
1. There is no clear formalized TK
2. A large number of applications are collected in the competition (sometimes hundreds)
3. The number of winners is limited (huge competition)
I think that readers understand these starting limitations. We will not talk about tenders where the evaluation criterion is the price and delivery conditions (for example, the upper for janitors or soap). In this particular case, the provisions of 94-FZ are quite suitable!

How are such contests held?

Let's look at an example. The algorithm is quite simple. A budget is formed, the maximum number of winners is determined, and tender documentation is prepared. Tender documentation is the first place to start confusing everyone. God forbid, the application will not be numbered, somewhere the impression of the rubber seal is not delivered, or there is a slight tax debt or the envelope is not drawn up correctly. Everything is goodbye. Second place is the formation of the project budget. There is the concept of the requested grant amount and own contribution. There is a tricky wording. In one place - the cost of the project, i.e. the amount of the requested money from the federal target program and own contribution, and there are places where you need to specify only the requested money, i.e. FTP money. It is impossible to confuse. You can immediately fly out. Another trick is co-financing. Requirement of tender documentation - at least 50% of the project funds. For example, the maximum requested grant is 45 million. An inexperienced applicant declares co-financing a little more than half, for example, 22.6 million. It would seem that the amount is more than 50% of the grant amount of 45 million. But the calculation shows otherwise. In these numbersproject amount 45 + 22.6 = 67.6 million. And now we calculate our own contribution. (22.6 / 67.6) * 100% = 33.4%! The applicant flies out! The formal criterion is not met. And now the task is how to fulfill the criterion? Practice!
The second mysterious place is the criteria for evaluating applications. Of course, there is a deadline, a share of co-financing and a number of formal criteria. But the most important ones are the applicant’s qualifications and experience, backlog and quality work content. This is the most important place for terry corruption. Estimates are given by experts. The names of the experts are not known. Allegedly for a fair assessment. There are several experts. As a rule, 3-5. Even if they are conscientious - they must be extremely competent and shovel all applications. And if there are one hundred or five hundred applications? Wow That is why a tricky move was found. Applications for expert examinations and support of other FTP projects began to appear in the FTP lots. As a rule, a Moscow consulting firm (registered a year ago) wins a competition for expert reviews and project support, receive tens of millions of rubles of budget money and "master" them ... How do you like it? Wonderful!

Great Roman law

In fact, all the most sensible in the legislation was invented a thousand years ago. In Rome. If there was a need to make an assessment, something was done simply. This assessment was done on the basis of rating. Put yourself in first place, friend in second, others, as your conscience tells you, and put the enemy in last place. Let those whom you value do the same, but they will also appreciate you. Remember this. Be fair. All ratings are passed to the arbiter. The arbiter removes the first and last place from each rating. Each ranking position is given a score in descending order. The one who scored the most points wins.
The question is, why not apply the same principle when examining grant applications? Why is this approach good? Firstly, since you are an applicant, you are essentially a specialist and expert in the field of applications from fellow competitors. Nothing is required of you, just send a list rating in descending order. No need to write reviews, comments, etc. For example, according to the results of the collection, 150 applications were received for the competition. Need to support 10 applications. 10 participants out of 150 are randomly sent to all participants for rating building. At the same time, the case is limited when your application gets to you to build a rating. Thus, after some time, 150 are going to the tender committee! ratings in which each application has passed ten examinations! All! Subtract the maximum and minimum ratings of each application. For the eight remaining positions in the rating, build the appropriate place in the final rating. The top ten entries win! No experts are needed - the community itself conducts self-examination, everything is quick, no additional expenses. Of course, in this case, each Applicant must be obliged to conduct an appropriate rating of ten random applications that will be randomly generated, where, for example, a script is used on the FTP site, where the applicant’s TIN is used as input or to ensure randomness, or something like that.
All this, of course, is hardly possible, but still, what do you think about this?
Have a nice day, everyone!!!