# Systems Engineering Methodology for Designing Digital Public-Private Partnership Platforms
## 2 Definitions and Methods
### Mechanism of Public-Private Partnerships: Opportunities to Use Digital Platform Solutions
[PERSON] and [PERSON] demonstrated that the involvement of multiple government agencies at the local, regional, and national levels further increases the complexity of PPP projects and makes their time delays more likely [1]. In summary, the following complexities and uncertainties arising from the development and implementation of PPP projects can be noted [24]:  
* Projects are characterized by large scale, long periods of implementation and payback, high capital intensity, and lack of guarantees to the private investor for the long term;
* Lack of a regulatory framework for PPP projects at the level of potential recipients of funding;
* Poor quality of the presented results of the technological audit, which does not allow the assessment of whether the presented set of technologies in the project is optimal;
* Lack of trained personnel for the preparation of project documentation, its justification, and further implementation of PPP projects;
* Complexity of the evaluation of the quality of the project itself, its real effectiveness, as well as the determination and separation of risks and responsibilities between the state and the private investor. We should also define the problems associated with PPP projects [2]:  
* Conflict between the project goals (financial and social ones);
* Higher cost of capital and initially significantly inflated cost of projects;
* Complexity of holding tenders and negotiating PPP contracts compared to the traditional procurement process;
* Weak \"flexibility\" of PPP contracts in general;
* Difficulty in implementing the optimal risk distribution between the PPP project participants in practice;
* Likely high corruption component in PPP. As a result of these shortcomings, contradictions between the parties or conflicts of interest can arise, which leads to the need to introduce adjustments to projects, to an increase in their implementation periods, an increase in budgets, etc. In some cases, this leads to a halt or termination of the project, even at the stage of investment or operation. These contradictions are mainly associated with insufficient or incomplete consideration of the needs of interested parties and poor organization of their interaction. Elimination of these shortcomings is possible if there is feedback throughout the entire period of project implementation. Further development of the PPP mechanism requires not so much financial support as the formation of a specialized center, which would provide the necessary legal, educational, informational, analytical, and other supports for the activities of project participants. Within such a single information space, it becomes possible to ensure the interaction of subjects of the digital economy with each other, as well as with business and government bodies. In this regard, high expectations are placed on the management model based on platform solutions, which will allow the state and the private sector to solve various problems together by engaging in real-time (online) interactions. In essence, PPP parties involved in the project require a third-party coordination platform that is objective and fair and could facilitate their dialog on equal terms [16]. It is possible to organize the interaction of numerous stakeholders of projects with the help of a modern approach in the form of a single digital environment (platform). Platforms are usually created for large numbers of users. With the passage of time, as a rule, they develop. However, they present their value to the users only after the necessary number of such users is achieved [25]. Meanwhile, their main purpose is to manage a huge network of consumers and producers, which is achieved through complex negotiations between their participants [26]. The main capabilities of digital platforms lie in the reduction in transaction costs, the combination of the strengths of the participants, and the realization of economies of scale [27]. Digital platforms aim to harmonize stakeholder requirements with specifications at different levels [28].