Australian Universities Procurement Consortium

AUPC has the support of Universities Australia and is managed through its professional services company, Higher Ed Services.

AUPC Mission Statement

To significantly improve strategic procurement practices in Australian Universities through a collaborative approach, focusing on sharing of expertise and business intelligence, promoting the benefits of aggregated purchasing, greater efficiency in processes, professional procurement education opportunities and encouraging the development of regional and national aggregated procurement contracts.

History Behind the Creation of the AUPC

The Australian Universities Procurement Consortium initiative (AUPC) was based on successful university purchasing consortia operating in the UK. Australian universities developed an interest in consortium buying following a presentation from John Ritchie the Director of the London Universities Purchasing Consortium in 2001 at the first HES National Finance and Procurement Conference. In 2002, John Ritchie was invited again to run a practical workshop in establishing consortium buying.

A group of university strategic procurement managers believed that Australian universities could achieve lower point-of-sale pricing by co-operating through strategic procurement initiatives and sought to develop a national initiative.

In October 2002 university procurement managers attended a meeting hosted by HES. The potential of developing a collaborative procurement strategy through a consortium of Australian universities was discussed. The successful consortia cited were London Universities Purchasing Consortium (UK), Collegebuys (USA) and, later, Church Resources (Australia) as the basis for proceeding with the concept of the Australian Universities Procurement Consortium.

The buying group model proposed at the October 2002 meeting resulted in 26 universities providing start-up funding totalling $242,500 to test the model, with the expectation that this would be returned in later years if and when the consortium had generated sufficient business contracts to cover operating costs.

The initial funding contributed by universities was applied to the appointment of a Development Director (seconded from a participating university), the legal review of ACCC requirements for national consortia procurement contracts, a review of university procurement policies at each institution, the development of a set of tendering documents and standard contracts for national contracts, legal costs in establishing a national industrial gases contracts and a Mitsubishi rebate arrangement and a Thrifty Car Rental arrangement.

Since 2005, the AUPC Executive Committee has been fully funded with a yearly contribution from HES and volunteer time from various universities, plus HES staff support during the last three years.