Tier AEU

Reinforcing synergies between experimentation spaces and innovation procurement

European Commission — Horizon Europe

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Expected Outcome: Project results are expected to contribute to the following outcomes: Advancing public sector modernization by capitalising on the transformational power of innovative technologies to improve the quality and efficiency of public services; Reinforce EU strategic autonomy and increase resilience in the supply chains by opening up opportunities for innovative companies, including notably SMEs and startups, to access the public procurement market and scale up their business; Improving opportunities for market uptake and economies of scale for the supply side through increased demand for innovative solutions and where relevant contribution to standardisation, regulation or certification; It is expected that if PCP results in the successful innovative solutions than at least one of those will be ready for deployment or even being already deployed in the project. Supporting the uptake of innovative and sustainable solutions through collaborative procurement approaches that encourage safer and more efficient practices in public sector applications. Scope: This topic aims to shorten the time to market for innovations by reinforcing synergies between innovation procurement and experimentation spaces such as test beds, livings labs or regulatory sandboxes. While public buyers often do not use experimentation spaces to test before they invest, companies also too often only start looking for potential customers, verifying regulatory compliance and product certification after R&D is finished, which delays commercialisation. This action enables innovators to develop and test innovative solutions immediately in cooperation with public buyers and where relevant also with competent regulatory and certification bodies. This specific challenge tackles both the gap between supply and demand for innovative solutions and the lack of cooperation of buyers with test beds, living labs, regulatory authorities and certification bodies during R&D. It targets therefore consortia of public buyers with similar procurement needs to drive innovation from the demand side, by together challenging the market to develop innovative solutions and by cooperating with test beds, living labs and where applicable with regulatory and certification bodies to remove regulatory and/or certification barriers for innovative solutions to enter the market in Europe. Cooperating with regulatory authorities has the specific benefit that then the testing environment of the PCP procurement can serve also as a regulatory sandbox. By fostering innovation procurement and opening a route to the market for innovative companies, including in particular also startups and scaleups, this topic contributes to the objectives of the EU Startup Scaleup Strategy and the European Innovation Act. PCP actions target consortia of procurers with similar needs that want to procure together and with relevant competent regulatory and certification bodies that want to cooperate with the procurers during the PCP project. Therefore, this topic does not provide direct funding to developers, industry or research organisations to perform R&D. They will be able to respond to the call for tenders launched by consortia of procurers funded under this call, and the winning tenderers will receive procurement contracts from the procurers. Specific guidance on PCP actions and minimum eligibility requirements can be found in General Annexes H of the Horizon Europe work programme. Joint pre-commercial procurement enables public buyers to share the effort and costs of procuring R&D and create a critical mass of demand that can trigger suppliers to commercialise promising research that can address concrete public sector needs. The aim of engaging in such more forward-looking R&D procurement strategies is to modernise the provision of public services faster, whilst creating also opportunities for industry and researchers in Europe to take international leadership in new markets. Establishing a cooperation between public buyers and suppliers during the development and testing of the solutions enables to tune developed solutions to concrete customer needs. When public buyers don’t have themselves advanced testing environments to test innovative technologies, cooperating with experimentation spaces such as living labs or test beds can help public buyers overcome this issue. Cooperating where relevant also with regulatory and/or certification bodies enables these bodies to learn already during the PCP about the potential impact of emerging innovations and adapt where needed the regulatory/certification process to accommodate smooth arrival of those innovations on the market. Testing the compliance of innovation solutions by a transnational buyers’ group in cooperation with regulatory/certification entities of different countries can also facilitate early identification of potential implications of ensuring the compliance of emerging innovations with regulations in a cross-border context.

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Fuente y trazabilidad de verificación

Fuente oficial: European Commission — Funding & Tenders Portal ↗
Primera obtención: 21 de julio de 2026
Última verificación: 21 de julio de 2026
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