Co-financing of public procurement of innovation consortia

Date de clôture : 8 juin 2021  
APPEL À PROJET CLÔTURÉ

This call for proposals intends to contribute to a significant increase in the proportion of European SMEs that have access to the Public Procurement of Innovation (PPI) market inside the European Union.

Background

This call for proposals contributes to the second COSME objective: “access to markets”.
In particular, this action recognises that the public sector can play a large role in helping companies, and in particular SMEs, overcome a well-known market failure: finding a first group of customers for their innovative products and services. 
Thus, this calls for proposals intends to improve European SMEs’ access to the Union market in the area of Public Procurement of Innovation PPI. 
Public Procurement of innovation (PPI) happens when the public sector uses its purchasing power to act as early adopter of innovative solutions which are not yet available on large scale commercial basis.

Objectives

This COSME call for proposals is expected to contribute to a substantial increase in the proportion of SMEs with access to the public procurement market, and in particular of the public procurement of innovation. In parallel, it will also contribute to increasing the visibility and awareness of the advantages of procuring innovation for a constantly increasing greater number of public buyers.

Expected results

Consortia shall contribute to fostering the cooperation between public buyers towards the increased use and impact of public procurement to develop innovative solutions to meet their needs. 
As a result of the project, each public buyer is expected to carry out at least one actual purchase, either jointly with other public buyers of its consortium (preferred option for this call) or individually.
In practical terms, this process shall involve in particular:

• Conducting and/or participating in the market consultation, which shall be done in at least 5 Member States and ideally at EU level.
• Negotiating with potential providers with a view to arriving at the best possible solution. 
• Paying attention to the issue of intellectual property rights (IPR). 

The consortia shall contribute to an increased awareness of PPI amongst public buyers and suppliers. For this, consortia are expected to design a strong, coherent and effective communication strategy, which shall properly target the right audience and use the most appropriate communication tools, including a website and social media.
Finally, consortia are also expected to contribute to an improvement in the efficiency of the provision of public services. For this, they are thus expected to define measures and tools to reach this results and appropriate indicators (e.g. increased users’ satisfaction, financial savings, increased environmental friendliness, etc.) to evaluate it. 

Eligible applicants and eligible consortia

Proposals may be submitted by any of the following applicants: 

• non-profit organisations (private or public); 
• public authorities (national, regional, local); 
• universities or educational institutions; 
• research centres; 
• profit making entities; 

Natural persons are not eligible.

Linked third parties (or ‘affiliated entities’) may take part in the action only as applicants in order to declare eligible costs.

Only applications from legal entities duly established in the following countries are eligible: 

• EU Member States;
• Countries participating in the COSME programme pursuant to Article 6 of the COSME Regulation.

In order to be eligible, a proposal must be submitted by a consortium composed of at least two public buyers from two different eligible countries. The public buyers will act as Contracting Authorities of the procurement procedures launched and finalised in the framework of the project(s) funded under this call. 

Other organisations who are not public buyers and meet the eligibility criteria may join a consortium as the partners see fit.

For UK applicants 
Please be aware that following the entry into force of the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement on 1 February 2020 and in particular Articles 127(6), 137 and 138, the references to natural or legal persons residing or established in a Member State of the European Union are to be understood as including natural or legal persons residing or established in the United Kingdom. UK residents and entities are therefore eligible to participate under this call for proposals. 

Selection process

The evaluation process will apply a two-stage methodology.
In the framework of stage 1 of the evaluation, applicants will have to submit an outline and a summary budget. The deadline for electronic submission is 19 January 2021, 17:00h (Brussels time). 

Only the six highest ranked successful proposals that will be successful under stage 1 will be invited to stage 2. EASME might decide to invite more than six proposals to stage 2 if more than one proposal will have the same total score of the one ranked in the sixth position of the ranking established following the evaluation of proposals submitted under stage 1. 

In the framework of stage 2 of the evaluation, the invited applicants will have to submit a full proposal and a detailed budget. The deadline for electronic submission will be 8 June 2021, 17:00h (Brussels time).

Selection criteria will be assessed only at Stage 2 of the evaluation, therefore, the related supporting documents described in section 8.2 "Operational capacity" of the Call document (curriculum vitae, summary table indicating the persons that will make up the core team responsible for the project and the list of previous projects and activities performed) will be requested for the submission of the full proposal (stage2).

Please refer to the Call for Proposals and Guide for Applicants before commencing the electronic submission. The link to the submission system is available on the Funding and Tenders Opportunities Portal.

Questions/answers

Potential applicants should address questions related to the content of this call by e-mail to: EASME-COSME-PPI-2020@ec.europa.eu 

Only questions sent to this functional mailbox will be answered. Answers will only be published periodically and within a reasonable period of time on this page. Last questions to be answered are those submitted at least 7 days prior to the closing date of this call.

For additional information, please check the latest version of the FAQs that we will be publishing below.