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Pre-commercial Procurement (PCP) vs Public Procurement of Innovation (PPI)
Why do we focus on PCP & PPI and why PCP/PPI are beneficial for Europe?
1. To foster more innovative public procurement procedures and admin capacities.
Main Beneficiaries & target group: procurement officers (improving know-how to run PCP/PPI procedures)
2. To foster innovation through public procurement - both PCP and PPI.
Beneficiaries: public procurers (e.g. open call offering co-financing, best ideas selected = public sector challenges that would generate maximum quality / efficiency improvement for region if solved by innovations). Target group: public sector (improved quality/efficiency) and enterprises (business opportunities).
3. To foster better meeting of public needs through buying the development (PCP) and deployment (PPI) of innovative solutions.
Beneficiaries: public procurers such as town planners, transport, environment, health etc. authorities and ministries (ERDF, Cohesion Fund and ESF). Target group: public sector (improved quality/efficiency) and enterprises (business opportunities).
What are the main differences between PCP & PPI?
| PCP | PPI | |
|---|---|---|
| When? | Challenge requires R&D to get new solutions developed. Problem clear, but pros/cons of several potential competing solutions not compared/validated yet. No committment to deploy (PPI) yet. | Challenge requires solution which is almost on the market or already on the market in small quantity but not meeting public sector requirements for large scale deployment yet. No R&D involved (R&D already done, or no R&D needed to solve problem). |
| What? | Public sector buys R&D to steer development of solutions to its needs, gather knowledge about pros/cons of alternative solutions, to avoid supplier lock-in later (create competitive supply base). | Public sector acts as launching customer / early adopter / first buyer for innovative products and services that are newly arriving on the market (not widely commercially available yet). |
| How | Public sector buys R&D form several suppliers in parallel (comparing alternative solution approaches), in form of competition evaluating progress after critical milestones (design, prototyping, test phase), risks and benefits of R&D (e.g IPRs) shared with suppliers to maximize incentives for the wide commercialisation. | Public sector acts as facilitator establishing a buyers group with critical mass that triggers industry to scale up its production chain to bring products on the market with desired quality / price ratio within a specific time. After potentially a test and/or certification, the buyers group purchases a significant volume of products. |
Table source: Smart PCP
Reference websites for information on PCP/PPI:
European Commission CORDIS - Info on upcoming events and EU funding for PCP and PPI, ongoing EU funded projects, PCP/PPI initiatives in countries around Europe, background docs and FAQs.
Innovation Procurement - mainly focused on PPI
Official Horizon 2020 docs setting funding conditions for PCP and PPI cofund actions
PCP related Projects funded under EU programs
PCP/PPI Linkedin Group - for all the PCP/PPI
Procurement forum - for all the PCP/PPI
Finding Partners:
PICSE Partner Search - for PCP/PPI related to cloud computing
Procurement Forum - for all the PCP/PPI
PCP/PPI Linkedin Group - for all the PCP/PPI
