The proposals, which were presented yesterday in Vienna by an
ad-hoc working group of ICT experts from all national
administrations, takes the view that such “pre-commercial
procurement of innovation” could be an important new driver for
research and development in the EU.
“Europe must create a commercial environment that encourages
more rapid innovation and take up of research results”, said
Viviane Reding, the EU Commissioner responsible for the Information
Society and Media. “The public sector has massive buying power, but
it needs the right incentives to share the risks as well as the
benefits of investing in new technologies and services.”
The classic approach to public procurement is one of buying
established products and services in order to minimise the risk and
to maximise the benefit to buyers. In contrast to this, yesterday’s
proposals suggest that buyers should come together to share the
risks and the benefits of pursuing novel services and products with
the providers themselves.
Such an approach would greatly stimulate innovation, increase
investment levels and stimulate take-up of related R&D, and at
the same time reduce risks through a pooling of resources, says the
working group.
In a report, “Pre-commercial procurement of innovation: A
missing link in the European innovative cycle”, the group reveals
that US and Asian economies are already procuring pre-commercial
R&D services in line with WTO rules.
It says that such an approach could have a profound impact in
the EU, where R&D investment by Member States is much lower
than in other regions of the world, and represents only a very
small fraction of their public procurement expenditures.
The Commission now proposes to follow up on the report by
exploring with those directly responsible for public procurement –
in particular national authorities – opportunities for a number of
joint actions in domains such as health, transport, security and
government. It will also consider whether further legal guidelines
are required to facilitate pre-commercial public procurement.
