GSS EU Science Funding Gateway

By closing the gap between supply and demand in a way that reinforces EU open strategic autonomy, PCPs can make a key contribution to economic recovery and growth. European public procurers need to lead by example by procuring more green and more digital.  This topic addresses Europe’s Achilles heel on the road towards a green and digital economic recovery, the lack and fragmentation of public demand for innovative solutions. While it is well known that public sector modernisation and economic growth depend heavily on the use of ICTs, European investments on innovation procurement in ICTs are still lagging behind compared to other leading global economies.

• Europe’s startups and SMEs are indispensable in delivering the required innovations.
• Pre-commercial procurement opens up the procurement market for startups and enables the public sector to address societal challenges more effectively, Europe’s Startup community as well as public procurers have requested the Commission and Member States to increase investments in PCP.

The topic is open to proposals from all domains of public sector activity to address public sector challenges that require innovative ICT based solutions. It is open both to proposals requiring improvements mainly based on one specific ICT technology, and those requiring end-to-end solutions that need cross-cutting combinations of different ICT technologies. The work will complement PCP Actions foreseen under other topics. Activities covered should include cooperation with policy makers to reinforce the national policy frameworks and mobilise substantial additional national budgets for PCP and innovation procurement in general beyond the scope of the project.