Scientific e-journals and e-books: subscription, access and related services

The need for a dedicated tender arises from the increasingly central role of scientific knowledge in law enforcement training, research, and practice. Policing and security are no longer shaped only by professional experience or internal doctrine, but also by empirical research, data analysis, and interdisciplinary evidence. Access to peer-reviewed academic publications is therefore essential to ensure that training content, analytical work, and operational methodologies are informed by reliable, current, and validated knowledge. Without a formal procurement mechanism, access to such resources would remain fragmented, uneven, and dependent on ad hoc arrangements, creating a risk that parts of the community rely on incomplete or outdated information. A dedicated tender is therefore necessary to secure stable, lawful, and comprehensive access to high-quality scientific e-journals and e-books across the CEPOL community. The tender is also needed to ensure equal and organised access for all relevant users, including trainers, analysts, researchers, and operational staff. In the absence of a structured contractual framework, access to scientific literature is likely to vary between institutions and individuals, undermining consistency in training delivery, limiting the dissemination of best practices, and reducing the overall coherence of professional development across jurisdictions. Centralised procurement will support a common knowledge base, strengthen harmonisation in law enforcement education, and reinforce CEPOL’s role as a hub for knowledge exchange and evidence-based learning. Finally, the tender is necessary to address the technical and economic specificities of accessing licensed academic content in a controlled, sustainable, and cost-effective manner. Scientific publishers generally rely on specific licensing, authentication, and access-management systems, which must be compatible with CEPOL’s existing digital environment. Without a procurement procedure tailored to these requirements, there is a significant risk of selecting solutions that are technically unsuitable, financially inefficient, or dependent on costly bespoke development. By defining clear technical requirements and prioritising solutions that can be implemented within the existing environment, the tender ensures operational feasibility, protects institutional resources, and guarantees continuity and reliability of access to essential scientific knowledge.