Chair of UKUPC Board, Richard Murphy and LUPC director, Don Bowman have issued a statement outlining the consortia's support and services to the HE sector during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

The statement says: "UKUPC is able to provide increased value to the HE sector during this difficult time, there is scope for use/uptake of UKUPC collaborative agreements to expand and deliver further savings and efficiencies to institutions."

It further outlines how UKUPC can help. "As well as procurement support, UKUPC is able to provide additional value-added services through learning and development, key research and reports, and personalised procurement services to generate additional savings.

"Training and support for the sector’s procurement community is central in protecting institutions through improving compliance and developing expert knowledge, and UKUPC’s breadth of professional development programmes provide training across a number of skillsets. Additional services - such as system and data tools - will be key sources of information for corporate decision making and will support the sector in achieving greater value for money in these challenging financial times."

UKUPC (UK Universities Purchasing Consortia) is the evolved convergence of eight UK Consortia; APUC, HEPCW, LUPC, NEUPC, NWUPC, SUPC, TEC and TUCO who created a formal partnership to support collaborative procurement within Higher Education. We work together to maximise use of the sector’s combined leverage, share knowledge / best practice and to support our wider procurement community.

Click here to read the full statement.