Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BUILD (BUILDING CAPACITIES IN INNOVATION PROCUREMENT FOR CITIES)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-10-01 al 2024-09-30
Innovation procurement is important as it can modernise public services and optimise its’ costs, solve problems and arising needs of the society and support start-ups and innovative SMEs to launch and grow. It is not only limited to purchasing innovation, but it can also be used as a strategic instrument (e.g. to facilitate the implementation of specific policies). Still, member states of the EU are not using to their full extent the possibilities of public procurement.
Considering this, the BUILD project was designed to enhance innovation procurement capacities for cities by providing comprehensive training and capacity-building actions targeted at public procurers. The project seeks to empower public sector users and create opportunities for innovative companies to showcase their solutions. This aligns with the strategic objectives of the EU public procurement directive (2014/24/EU), which emphasises the importance of opening avenues for public procurement of innovation.
BUILD integrated a range of high-quality capacity-building tools to facilitate the implementation of training services in cities, providing up to date educational materials on Innovation Procurement to stimulate its adoptions. The project engaged mainly with public-private procurers, but also SMEs, and startups. The training, focused on public buyers, provided by sector experts, covers various topics essential to innovation procurement, including guiding principles, legal knowledge and procedures, preliminary market consultation, pre-commercial procurement, competitive dialogue, competitive procedures with negotiation, innovation partnership, and risk assessment. The partner countries of the project are Slovakia, Estonia, Finland and The Netherlands. The cities leading innovation procurement involved in the project are Tartu, Turku and Rotterdam.
By fostering mutual learning and knowledge exchange, the project leveraged existing EU-funded initiatives, such as those supported by Horizon Europe and other EU funding programs and establish fruitful synergies. In the end, fruitful clustering activities were undertaken, maximising project’s results and outreach. The impacts are expected to be foreseen in the partner countries as well as to be extended to the sectors and areas of the synergic network.
Considering this, the BUILD project was designed to enhance innovation procurement capacities for cities by providing comprehensive training and capacity-building actions targeted at public procurers. The project seeks to empower public sector users and create opportunities for innovative companies to showcase their solutions. This aligns with the strategic objectives of the EU public procurement directive (2014/24/EU), which emphasises the importance of opening avenues for public procurement of innovation.
BUILD integrated a range of high-quality capacity-building tools to facilitate the implementation of training services in cities, providing up to date educational materials on Innovation Procurement to stimulate its adoptions. The project engaged mainly with public-private procurers, but also SMEs, and startups. The training, focused on public buyers, provided by sector experts, covers various topics essential to innovation procurement, including guiding principles, legal knowledge and procedures, preliminary market consultation, pre-commercial procurement, competitive dialogue, competitive procedures with negotiation, innovation partnership, and risk assessment. The partner countries of the project are Slovakia, Estonia, Finland and The Netherlands. The cities leading innovation procurement involved in the project are Tartu, Turku and Rotterdam.
By fostering mutual learning and knowledge exchange, the project leveraged existing EU-funded initiatives, such as those supported by Horizon Europe and other EU funding programs and establish fruitful synergies. In the end, fruitful clustering activities were undertaken, maximising project’s results and outreach. The impacts are expected to be foreseen in the partner countries as well as to be extended to the sectors and areas of the synergic network.
Key activities and their main achivements include:
Identifying relevant innovation procurements (WP2):
-Collection of best practices in innovation procurement through buddy pairing sessions organised among project public buyers. The activities involved the presentation of the achivements of the cities and their differences, to identify strong and weak activities and ways to complement them collaboratively.
-Organising various activities to realistically understand the state of the art of innovation procurement in the partner countries, asses best practices, needs and gaps. Results are summarised in the Insights Report.
Expansion and engagement of innovation procurers (WP3):
-Developing value propositions for public buyers, focusing on innovation procurement to provide targeted engagement activities.
-Stakeholder mapping and scouting, with a focus on clustering public buyers, SMEs, and intermediaries
-Onboarding these stakeholders for further participation in the project’s training and engagement activities, through interest assessment survey, social media interactions, newsletters and event emails.
Results:
-Over 14 meetings with key stakeholders,22 co-creation workshops, 22 internal events
-Creation of a IP (Innovation Procurement) Task Force for continuous engagement and cross- support in innovation procurement.
-More than 700 procurers reached directly and indirectly.
Capacity building (WP4 and WP5):
-Conducted four country-specific training sessions for public buyers on how to procure innovation.
-Delivered staff exchanges across BUILD project cities
-Delivered 6 capacity-building webinars
-Creation of training materials for PPI simulation and education library
Results:
-More than 600 participants across various workshops, co-creation sessions, and staff exchanges, with significant representation from the public sector, but also private sector.
Identifying relevant innovation procurements (WP2):
-Collection of best practices in innovation procurement through buddy pairing sessions organised among project public buyers. The activities involved the presentation of the achivements of the cities and their differences, to identify strong and weak activities and ways to complement them collaboratively.
-Organising various activities to realistically understand the state of the art of innovation procurement in the partner countries, asses best practices, needs and gaps. Results are summarised in the Insights Report.
Expansion and engagement of innovation procurers (WP3):
-Developing value propositions for public buyers, focusing on innovation procurement to provide targeted engagement activities.
-Stakeholder mapping and scouting, with a focus on clustering public buyers, SMEs, and intermediaries
-Onboarding these stakeholders for further participation in the project’s training and engagement activities, through interest assessment survey, social media interactions, newsletters and event emails.
Results:
-Over 14 meetings with key stakeholders,22 co-creation workshops, 22 internal events
-Creation of a IP (Innovation Procurement) Task Force for continuous engagement and cross- support in innovation procurement.
-More than 700 procurers reached directly and indirectly.
Capacity building (WP4 and WP5):
-Conducted four country-specific training sessions for public buyers on how to procure innovation.
-Delivered staff exchanges across BUILD project cities
-Delivered 6 capacity-building webinars
-Creation of training materials for PPI simulation and education library
Results:
-More than 600 participants across various workshops, co-creation sessions, and staff exchanges, with significant representation from the public sector, but also private sector.
Results include:
1.Public procurement of innovation (PPI) model: BUILD comprehensive capacity-building model for innovation procurement, integrating structured market consultations, empathy mapping, on site local training sessions and staff exchanges, resulting at the end in aggregated open access learning resources, based on real experiences.
2.Educational resources and platforms: open-access educational library with over 25 resources, including interactive quizzes, factsheets, lesson plans, and videos, aimed at upskilling public buyers on PPI. The website gathers all these resources, including news and articles about Innovation Procurement main features.
3.Innovation procurement task force (IPTF): establishing the Innovation Procurement Task Force (IPTF) has created a collaborative network of public buyers, SMEs, and startups across Europe. This network enables ongoing innovation procurement initiatives, providing mutual learning and sharing of best practices—a key result that enhances the ecosystem beyond previous procurement initiatives but also centralize PPI knowledge and resources, ensuring continuous learning and collaboration across European public procurement projects and initiatives.
Potential impacts:
Public sector modernisation: BUILD enhances the efficiency and innovation capacity of public authorities across Europe by upskilling public buyers with innovation procurement methods.
Key needs for further uptake:
-Centralisation of resources on Innovation Procurement, with guidelines for local application.
-Ensure continuation of capacity building from the latest initiatives
-Expanding funding mechanisms to encourage participation in innovation procurement.
-Harmonizing procurement standards across Europe for smoother cross-border procurement.
1.Public procurement of innovation (PPI) model: BUILD comprehensive capacity-building model for innovation procurement, integrating structured market consultations, empathy mapping, on site local training sessions and staff exchanges, resulting at the end in aggregated open access learning resources, based on real experiences.
2.Educational resources and platforms: open-access educational library with over 25 resources, including interactive quizzes, factsheets, lesson plans, and videos, aimed at upskilling public buyers on PPI. The website gathers all these resources, including news and articles about Innovation Procurement main features.
3.Innovation procurement task force (IPTF): establishing the Innovation Procurement Task Force (IPTF) has created a collaborative network of public buyers, SMEs, and startups across Europe. This network enables ongoing innovation procurement initiatives, providing mutual learning and sharing of best practices—a key result that enhances the ecosystem beyond previous procurement initiatives but also centralize PPI knowledge and resources, ensuring continuous learning and collaboration across European public procurement projects and initiatives.
Potential impacts:
Public sector modernisation: BUILD enhances the efficiency and innovation capacity of public authorities across Europe by upskilling public buyers with innovation procurement methods.
Key needs for further uptake:
-Centralisation of resources on Innovation Procurement, with guidelines for local application.
-Ensure continuation of capacity building from the latest initiatives
-Expanding funding mechanisms to encourage participation in innovation procurement.
-Harmonizing procurement standards across Europe for smoother cross-border procurement.