The main objective of the INPROCAP project is to build specialist advisory services on innovative procurement amongst national Industrial Liaison Officers (ILOs) to Big Science Organisations (BSOs). More than 100 ILOs serve as the interface between advanced, innovative SMEs and the procurement functions at large international and national research infrastructures in a currently scattered and fragmented manner. BSOs include, e.g. CERN (CH), EuXFEL (DE), European Spallation Source (ESS-SWE), EISCAT (SE), Fusion4Energy (F4E/ITER) (FR), among many others with an enormous innovation potential. Each BSO has an array of nationally appointed ILOs with specialist knowledge who are currently not connected, but who could be placed as facilitators in the innovation ecosystem to readily assist public procurers in BSOs to engage SMEs in the opportunities that innovation procurement opens.
The BSOs represent huge European public investments, estimated at EUR 38.7 billion for the coming years. Since all the BSOs target global leadership within their respective fields, they often require cross-sectoral technology solutions at the forefront of what is possible. The BSOs are widely recognized as drivers for innovation with a huge impact on society. The innovation potential from Big Science is seen both in the success stories from CERN’s contribution to the development of, e.g. the world-wide-web and computer mouse, in the technologies emerging from the space sector and the European Space Agency, and for example highlighted in an article published as part of the World Economic forum meeting in Davos 2022.
However, innovation procurement is still an underused mechanism in the BSO value chain, and the potential to improve the ability to transform BSO public spending into innovation for use in European industry and, thus, improve the competitiveness of European companies on global markets is high in this sector. Furthermore, innovation procurement will allow BSOs to deliver a higher quality public service at an optimal budget.
Key stakeholders in the Big Science innovation chain are the national ILOs linked to the innovation needs from the BSOs and linked to national industries through innovative companies. ILOs are appointed nationally by each member state and officially tasked with ensuring the
connection between industry competences and the BSOs needs to maximize the industrial impact of the joint public investments made by many countries in the Big Science facilities. Many ILOs also have additional functions in research and at universities. In order to develop a widespread application of the innovation procurement tool, there is a need to develop a specialist advisory function with knowledge to accompany the processes and deep links to the full ecosystem – standardizing practices in Europe and enhancing collaboration within Member States/Associated Countries. With INPROCAP, we propose to embed this function into the ILO role at a European level. This will both stimulate the Big Science innovation procurement processes and develop experiences and best practices that can be spread out to other sectors of public procurement.
The INPROCAP consortium is uniquely positioned to potentiate innovation procurement opportunities for BSOs, by involving four ILO networks (DTI, NWO, CDTI, NCBJ) covering the entire European region – the ILOs will cocreate and receive training on innovation procurement (developed with and provided by an SME with vast experience in innovation procurement – PEDAL). INPROCAP partners will engage their wider network of start-ups and innovative companies, while developing and ensuring that BSOs are capable and prepared to embark on innovation procurement processes. BSOs are directly involved in INPROCAP through EuXFEL and EISCAT, and training will be developed for them (by PEDAL) to enable them to define innovation procurement needs that can be presented to innovative companies. This will unlock the potential of these companies to increase their supply of innovations to the public sector.
