Strategic pre-commercial procurements of innovative, advanced systems to support security

• Sub-topic 1: [2018] Common requirements specifications for innovative, advanced systems to support security (CSA)

Practitioners from several countries are invited to work on common requirements of any kind of system that they may need in the future to enhance border and external security, to fight against crime and terrorism, to protect infrastructure, or to make societies more resilient, and to involve their respective procurement bodies in preparing for future acquisitions. Practitioner organisations may be private or public entities.

To ensure that the outcome of this action becomes also available to EU Member State national authorities as well as EU agencies not participating for further procurement purposes, proposals must necessarily state:

(1). Agreement from participating procurement authorities to negotiate, in good faith and on a case-by-case basis, with non-participating procurement authorities that wish to procure a capability or a product fully or partly derived from this action, the use of the information required to run such a procurement process, and solely for that purpose.

(2). Commitment from participating procurement authorities to consult with any legal entity generating information to be released for the purpose set out in paragraph (1), unless contrary to applicable legislation.

(3). Commitment from participating procurement authorities to negotiate the use granted under paragraph (1) on Fair Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

The following options of the Model Grant Agreement will be implemented:
- Options on additional exploitation obligations of Article 28.1 of the Model Grant Agreement will be applied.
- Grants awarded under this topic will be complementary to the grant agreement under Sub-topic 2 of this Topic. The respective options of Article 2, and Article 41.4 of the Model Grant Agreement[[http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/grants_manual/amga/h2020-amga_en.pdf]] will be applied.

A subset of the domains addressed by the proposals selected for funding by the Commission further to this call will be continued with pre-commercial procurement activities in 2020.

Proposals should lead to solutions to be developed in compliance with European societal values, fundamental rights and applicable legislation, including in the area of free movement of persons, privacy and protection of personal data. Societal aspects (e.g. perception of security, possible side effects of technological solutions, societal resilience) have to be taken into account in a comprehensive and thorough manner. All participating procurement authorities should also commit to comply with EU data protection legislation in the development of innovative, advanced systems to support security and in particular with the principles of data protection by design and by default.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of about EUR 1 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Sub-topic 2: [2020] Procurement of prototype systems among those specified as a result of Sub-topic 1 (PCP)

The Commission invites practitioners involved in projects funded under Sub-topic 1 to submit proposals for this PCP stage based on requirements resulting from those projects.

Phase 1: To finalise the tendering documents package for a call for tenders to build security-relevant prototypes based on the technical input resulting from Sub-topic 1 of this Topic. To define clear verification and validation procedures, methods and tools for the evaluation of the prototypes to be developed throughout the PCP stages;

Phase 2: To implement the call for tenders for research and development services. The call for tenders should envisage a competitive development composed of different stages that would lead to at least 2 prototypes from 2 different providers to be validated in real operational environment at the end of the PCP cycle;

Phase 3: To conduct the competitive development of the prototypes following the PCP principles including, at least, a design stage, an integration and technical verification stage and a validation in real environment stage. This process should be assessed following the procedures for verification and validation defined in the Phase 1;

Phase 4: To consolidate the results of the evaluation of the developed prototypes, extract conclusions and recommendations from the validation process, and to define a clear strategy for the further uptake of solutions. This strategy should consider joint-cross border procurement schemes and exploit synergies with other EU funds.

Proposals must build on the outcomes of the projects funded under Sub-topic 1. In order to guarantee a successful implementation of the PCP, proposals must provide clear evidence that such projects have delivered concrete outcomes on the following aspects:

- That the challenge is pertinent and that indeed a PCP action is required to complete the maturation cycle of certain technologies and to compare different alternatives;

- That there is a consolidated group of potential buyers with common needs and requirements which are committed to carry out a PCP action in order to be able to take an informed decision on a future joint-procurement of innovative solutions;

- That there is a quantifiable and identifiable community of potential buyers (including and beyond those proposed as beneficiaries in the proposal) who would share to a wide extent the common needs and requirements defined and who would be interested in exploring further joint-uptake of solutions similar to those developed under the PCP, should these prove to be technologically mature and operationally relevant by the end of the project;

- That the state of the art and the market (including research) has been explored and mapped, and that there are different technical alternatives to address the proposed challenge;

- That the future PCP tendering process is clear, that a draft planning has been proposed and that the supporting documentation and administrative procedures will be ready on due time in order to launch the call for the acquisition of R&D services according to the PCP rules.

To ensure that the outcome of this action becomes available for further procurement purposes to EU Member State national authorities as well as EU agencies not participating, the proposal must provide evidence of the following:

(1). Agreement from participating procurement authorities to negotiate, in good faith and on a case-by-case basis, with non-participating procurement authorities that wish to procure a capability or a product fully or partly derived from this action, the use of the information required to run such a procurement process, and solely for that purpose;

(2). Commitment from participating procurement authorities to consult with any legal entity generating information to be released for the purpose set out in paragraph (1), unless contrary to applicable legislation;

(3). Commitment from participating procurement authorities to negotiate the use granted under paragraph (1) on Fair Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

The centre of gravity for technology development with actions funded under this subtopic is expected to be up to TRL 8 – see General Annex G of the Horizon 2020 Work Programme.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 2 to 12 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Proposals should ensure that solutions will be developed in compliance with European societal values, fundamental rights and applicable legislation, including in the area of free movement of persons, privacy and protection of personal data. Societal aspects (e.g. perception of security, possible side effects of technological solutions, societal resilience) have to be taken into account in a comprehensive and thorough manner. All participating procurement authorities should also commit to comply with EU data protection legislation in the development of innovative, advanced systems to support security and in particular with the principles of data protection by design and by default.

Innovative solutions are needed when resources from different countries are required to work more closely together. Such solutions should support the development of the EU’s Security Union.

Short term:

• Common requirements for innovative prototypes agreed among the practitioner organisations involved in the action;
• Technical tender documents ready for use by subsequent pre-commercial procurement actions, as well as by non-participating procurement authorities;
• Common solutions to address urgent security challenges jointly developed, integrated and valuated;
• Potential demand for security solutions, inspired by those developed, is aggrevated.

Medium term:

• To develop common technical specifications and reference performance levels for joint EU security solutions;
• To pave the road to market for technically mature and operationally relevant solutions and to accelerate their wide deployment in the EU.

Long Term:

• To contribute to narrowing down the gap between research and the market for the next generation of security solutions;
• To contribute to a single EU security market, by reducing market fragmentation and allowing exploitation of economies of scale;
• To facilitate access of new innovative players to the public procurement market;
• To contribute to reinforcing the competitiveness of the EU technology and industrial base.