Interview with Tudor Oprișor, PhD: Advancing Sustainable Procurement in the Railway Sector

Hi SPRINTers,

Welcome to the first in our series of mini-interviews featuring members of the SPRINT project, an initiative focused on sustainable procurement in the railway sector. In this interview, we are pleased to have a conversation with Dr. Tudor Oprișor, a researcher and lecturer from Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, the Romanian partner in the project.

Tudor brings extensive expertise in accounting, sustainability, and business development consultant and and co-manager at a small enterprise, making his contributions to SPRINT invaluable.

Dr. Oprișor shares his perspectives on the project’s objectives, challenges, and potential contributions to sustainable procurement in the railway sector:

A Journey in Academia and Beyond

Given your expertise in sustainability and business, what inspired you to contribute to the SPRINT project?

👨‍🏫 Dr. Oprișor: Well, although the project doesn’t really revolutionize anything, but it brings a lot of added value and insights into the direction of public procurement. In my opinion, the main artisan of this project – at least from the Romanian side – is our colleague, Daniela. When she came up with the proposal, I was very eager to be a part of the team, as my previous research focus during my doctoral and post-doctoral studies was framed on sustainability and integrated reporting. Then, we teamed up with Gillian and her team from USN - University of South-Easthern Norway, as they were very excited to get involved in this knowledge sharing initiative. I consider green procurement as the only durable way forward because we see that the world is changing, and climate issues become more and more problematic. We hope that at the end of the project we can provide more clarity on this topic and create some instruments to map the road towards greener procurement.

Collaboration and Challenges in the Research Process

How has the collaboration between the research teams in Romania and Norway progressed?

👨‍🏫 Dr. Oprișor: Very well, we’re delighted with our collaboration. This is actually not our first project partnering with them, we had previous common endeavors. Gillian and Eivind have always been a great support and open to our proposals. On the technical side, for SPRINT, we are currently working Behzad, Abdelkader and their research assistants and – I have to say – they are just brilliant, as you may have already seen in the first deliverables. They are very involved, always provide good and constructive feedback, and you can see their quality in their work. So, all in all, so far, it’s a great collaboration.

This synergy has significantly contributed to the success of the project so far.

What are some of the key challenges you have encountered in your research?

👨‍🏫 Dr. Oprișor: I believe it’s always challenging in these transnational projects to find comparable data. Romania and Norway have different systems of reference and different legislative frameworks, but I’m confident that we can find a way forward. Also, I believe that there are good examples and good practices from Norway that can be transposed for Romanian stakeholders – and we expect to see this in the findings. One major challenge is the scarcity of data – at least in Romania – concerning the GPP topic. The field is currently in development, as we monitor the activity and provisions brought by the Authority for Railway Reform. However, we try to match the amount of data collected by the team from Norway – so that the deliverables can be comparable. In addition, as we are currently working on the third deliverable, we have issues finding respondents to interviews from the railway stakeholder spectrum. Finding more stakeholders would increase the value of the third deliverable, but we’ll see how that works out.

Potential Contributions to Policy and Industry

How do you anticipate the findings of the SPRINT project contributing to policy, industry, and society?

👨‍🏫 Dr. Oprișor: In lots of ways! The project has a logical structure: it starts from a static view of the current status in this field – the so-called “initial situation report”, followed by the policy brief – on the legislative side. The last two activities and deliverables – currently a work in progress – have a more practical side. So, on the policy levels we have some insight from both systems – Romania and Norway – and we can pinpoint the strengths and, let’s say, gaps – where we can delineate some recommendations and proposals, using knowledge transfer. On the practical side, we will try to extract from the case studies and interviews some insights which will help us create a framework for good practices and synthesize the findings in a business toolkit. This last deliverable will have the greatest impact and added value, as we aim to make it replicable for other industries which use facets of GPP, as well. Sustainable development will consistently be an important focus point in the following years, so we hope our research will provide clarity for the general public and, specifically, for the important stakeholders. The timeframe for the project is a bit restricted, so this will be only the exploratory side, but our aim is to use this funding as a platform for a durable collaboration in researching this topic for the years to come.

Broader Significance of The Project

How can stakeholders and the public engage with the findings of this research?

👨‍🏫 Dr. Oprișor: We’re always open to discussion and debates. We have hoped for a better response rate at the interviews, but it is what it is. However, we eagerly invite anyone interested in this topic to contact us and give feedback in real time, it always helps us to have constructive feedback and – why not – constructive criticism. I think our contacts are on the official website, but the public can also interact with us on social media, as well. Great work, by the way, we highly commend you on your wonderful work in promoting our project and findings online.
We’re delighted by your involvement and we thank you for being a valuable part of our SPRINT team!

This interview with Dr. Tudor Oprișor highlights the importance of sustainable procurement, the collaborative research process, and the challenges and opportunities in implementing green procurement practices. As the SPRINT project advances, its findings aim to contribute to policy recommendations, industry practices, and academic discourse on sustainability in the railway sector.

🔹 Stay tuned about our research and updates.