Discrepancy between the SME bids and SME awards

There is a discrepancy between the SME bids and SME awards. For example with Liechtenstein, which notes more than 99% of the bids from SME’s, but has less than 71% of the awards go to SME’s. In Switzerland it is the other way around, with 83% of bids coming from SME’s and more than 98% of the awards going to SME’s. The Netherlands shows a similar but less extreme pattern as Switzerland.

It could well be that this is what was stated in the contract award notices, but it is obvious that the four mentioned percentages can’t all be correct at the same time. Given the big differences, the actual percentages can be 10 or 20 percentage off.

Because you don’t see these two charts in the same dashboard of the PPDS, people might only look at one of these charts and assume it is (more or less) correct. This could lead to wrong conclusions. Maybe we can place disclaimers at places where we know the reliability is less than desired.