On 27 August 2026, ACR+ organised the European MASTERY Kick-start Workshop “Making circular procurement skills recognisable and portable”. The online event brought together experts and relevant stakeholders to explore how micro-credentials can support the professional development of public buyers and strengthen the implementation of circular public procurement across Europe.
The workshop formed part of Work Package 5 of the MASTERY project and was the 13th Kick-start Workshop organised within the project. While previous sessions examined micro-credential implementation within different national contexts, this workshop brought the discussion to the European level and focused on a professional field of growing strategic importance.
The growing importance of circular procurement skills
Public procurement can play a decisive role in accelerating the transition towards a circular economy. By integrating criteria related to durability, repairability, reuse, recycled content, resource efficiency and life-cycle impacts, public authorities can use their purchasing power to encourage more sustainable products, services and business models.
The discussion was particularly timely, as European legislation is increasingly introducing mandatory circularity and sustainability criteria into public procurement. However, circular procurement has not yet been clearly defined as a common set of professional competences at European level.
This lack of a shared competence reference makes it difficult to compare training programmes, assess learning outcomes and recognise the knowledge acquired by public buyers across different administrations and countries. It can also limit the portability of skills and the professional development opportunities available to civil servants working in this area.
The credential is not the first step
One of the central conclusions of the workshop was that creating a micro-credential is not, in itself, the main challenge. Short learning courses can already be designed and accredited, and valuable training content on circular and sustainable procurement is available across Europe.
Before developing or expanding new credentials, several essential preliminary steps need to be addressed:
- Clearly define the knowledge, skills and competences required by circular procurement professionals.
- Develop a shared competence reference that can be understood and applied across European countries.
- Map existing training opportunities against this competence reference.
- Establish quality and assessment criteria that make learning outcomes transparent.
- Ensure that relevant training is recognised as part of the professional development of civil servants.
- Enable the resulting skills and credentials to be recognised and transferred between public administrations and countries.
A common framework would make it easier to identify skills gaps, develop comparable learning programmes and create micro-credentials with clear value for both learners and employers.
Recognition and portability across public administrations
Participants highlighted that micro-credentials could provide public buyers with flexible opportunities to acquire or update specialised competences without undertaking long training programmes. This could be particularly useful in a rapidly evolving regulatory environment in which procurement professionals need to respond to new sustainability requirements.
However, the value of these credentials will depend on whether administrations recognise them and incorporate them into professional development pathways. Without this connection, even high-quality training may have limited impact on career progression, staff mobility or organisational capacity.
For micro-credentials to become genuinely portable, public authorities need to understand what each credential certifies, how learning has been assessed and how the acquired competences relate to professional responsibilities.
The role of local and regional authorities
Local and regional authorities can play an important role in advancing this process. As both employers and major public purchasers, they can recognise circular procurement training undertaken by their staff, identify emerging skills needs and support the testing of new learning pathways.
They can also contribute practical evidence to the development of a European competence framework in an area that is not yet fully covered by existing instruments. Their experience can help ensure that future micro-credentials respond to the realities of public procurement and can be applied in different administrative and territorial contexts.
Cooperation between public authorities, training providers, policymakers and circular economy experts will therefore be essential to develop a system that combines European comparability with sufficient flexibility to address local and regional needs.
Contributing to the MASTERY policy recommendations
The outcomes of the workshop will feed directly into the MASTERY policy recommendations and implementation roadmap. They will complement the evidence gathered through the national Kick-start Workshops and support the wider adoption of transparent, flexible and high-quality micro-credentials for the green transition.
By examining how circular procurement skills can be defined, recognised and made portable, the workshop also contributed to the broader MASTERY objective of developing micro-credentials at EQF levels 5 and 6 that respond to emerging green skills needs.