European Public Public Procurement of Innovation Platform
2012
The potential for the use of public procurement as an instrument to stimulate innovation has received growing emphasis in Europe in recent years. Representing 16% of European GDP, public procurement is a key source of demand and a major area in which governments are striving to improve effectiveness in their delivery of public services. The PPI Platform helped to structure and coordinate networking, capacity building, dissemination of key information and use of public procurement as a mechanism for stimulating innovation in Europe.
In 2019, the PPI Platform was re-launched as the Innovation Procurement Platform, reflecting developments in how the public sector procures innovative goods and services.
The PPI Platform project was developed in the framework of the “Supporting Public Procurement of Innovative Solutions: networking and financing procurement” - Grant Programme 2011 by the European Commission - DG Enterprise & Industry. It was lead by ICLEI in collaboration with PIANOo (the Netherlands); iwT – Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (Belgium) and REC – Regional Environmental Centre (Hungary). The overall objective of the project was to structure and coordinate networking, capacity building, dissemination and further the use of public procurement as a mechanism for fostering more innovation, aiming in particular at making widely available know-how on public procurement procedures for innovation procurement (e.g. PPI and pre-commercial procurement), and state-of-the-art solutions accessible to other procurers. The project has helped increase the demand for innovative products and services, and thereby helped support improving the quality and efficiency of services provided by public authorities. To achieve the overall objective the project served to set up a European Procurement and Innovation Platform consisting of a highly interactive public website/resource centre with a restricted access online collaboration forum (the Procurement Forum). Guidance tools, events, training and staff exchange to support public procurement of innovative solutions have complemented this. Special focus has been placed on the development of practical guidelines and tools which facilitate preparation and implementation of innovative public procurement procedures.
In 2019, the PPI Platform was rebranded to the Innovation Procurement Platform.
