Innovation and Public Procurement
In Europe, innovation has been high on the policy agenda for several years now, as its impact on competitiveness and growth is widely accepted. The use of public procurement to enhance innovation has recently seen a significant increase in political discussions. The Lisbon Progress Report highlighted the need for “using public procurement more as leverage to promote innovative private sector solutions” including it as part of Action 1 “Investing more in knowledge and innovation.” The Aho report confirmed the need for action in this field calling upon governments to “use public procurement to drive demand for innovative goods, while at the same time improving the level of public services.”
The interest in using public procurement as a mechanism to raise investments in innovation and research is growing. Practice has learned that good public procurement is difficult, and even more so when it concerns the procurement of innovations. The European Commission recognizes this and has initiated activities on procurement. A Handbook on the possibilities the public procurement directives offer for commercial and pre-commercial innovation-oriented tendering is being prepared by the Commission services and is to be published later this year. This is an important step in the awareness raising process of the possibilities for Contracting Authorities to foster innovation . This handbook will help clarify to policy-makers how public procurement can stimulate firms to invest more in research and innovation, and will raise awareness of the possibilities under the new procurement Directives . Secondly, the Commission is funding a project to analyse the possibilities to improve innovation performance through reference to standards in public procurement processes. The project will last 24 months and result in guidelines referencing standards in public procurement. Third, setup of transnational coordination and cooperation activities by procuring authorities can be open to support under PRO INNO Europe.
The purpose of this workshop is to discuss the use of public procurement to enhance innovation and to support the European Commission in the development of the before mentioned handbook.
Scoping Paper
http://www.proinno-europe.eu/sites/default/files/Workshop_Scoping_Paper_...Agenda
http://www.proinno-europe.eu/sites/default/files/Workshop_Agenda_4_2006.pdfBackground paper
http://www.proinno-europe.eu/sites/default/files/Workshop_Background_Pap...Conclusion
http://www.proinno-europe.eu/sites/default/files/Workshop_Conclusion_Pap...Presentations
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