PCP and PPI: a public boost to societal challenge-driven innovation
In the EU, two mechanisms are increasingly used to this end, putting governments’ purchasing power to good use by pulling demand for innovation, creating a signalling effect and facilitating the diffusion of innovations. Public Procurement for Innovation (PPI) is used in challenges that can be addressed by innovative solutions close to commercialisation or already commercialised in small quantity, while Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) is favoured when there are no existing near-to-the-market solutions and new R&D is needed. Although these co-financing mechanisms were already used extensively under FP7, Horizon 2020 reinforces them by introducing two dedicated instruments. In total, the EU is putting EUR 354.2 million on the table for PCP and PPI funding over the years 2016-2020. This CORDIS Results Pack aims to shed light on the main innovations brought by EU-funded PPI and PCP projects. It demonstrates how these tools concretely help innovative products to reach commercial success, increase the quality of public services, support SMEs and help address major societal challenges. Selected projects cover a wide range of topics, from smart firefighter equipment to intelligent transport systems, ehealth and telemedicine, technologies to support independent living, brownfield decontamination and ICT solutions to support road construction and repair processes. Our latest batch, published in May 2018, is all about building communities of procurers for more efficient PPI in the bio-based industry (InnProBio), public transport (SPICE) and sustainable procurement (SPP Regions).
