The European Assistance for Innovation Procurement initiative (www.eafip.eu) seeks to receive applications from public procurers of all EU Member States to support the implementation of Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) and Procurement of Innovative Solution (PPI).

During 2019, at least 3 new innovation procurements of ICT based solutions will be selected to benefit from technical and/or legal local assistance free of charge. Priority will be given to those innovation procurements of high impact ICT solutions such as Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity. The EAFIP also welcomes innovation procurements (PCP and PPI) under national digital/ICT strategies.

Using public procurement strategically to drive forward the development and the deployment of innovative solutions is essential to modernize public services while creating also business opportunities for companies in Europe. In the coming years, the quality and efficiency of public services will be able to benefit from a new wave of transformative digital innovations – e.g. in the field of blockchain, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, cyber security – that are of strategic importance for European competitiveness. In the majority of European countries, the national digital / ICT strategies recognise the strategic importance and encourage the wider use of innovation procurement to reap those benefits. However, in order to turn these ambitions into actions, there is a need to flank these policy initiatives with capacity building and assistance on innovation procurement for public procurers.The European Assistance for Innovation Procurement can help make this happen. Its planned activities are:

1. It provides free of charge technical and legal assistance to public procurers across all EU Member States in the preparation and implementation of innovation procurements of ICT based solutions (http://eafip.eu/assistance/). This includes local assistance for pre-commercial procurements and public procurements of innovative solutions supported by local lawyers that speak the local official EU language (http://eafip.eu/assistance/lawyer network/). The assistance is open to all types of public procurers at all levels (local, regional, national) across all domains of public sector activity (e.g. security and safety, health and social services, transport, energy, water, environment, education and culture, construction and housing, public administration / e-government).

2. It promotes good practices and reinforces the evidence base, in particular on the impacts achieved by completed innovation procurements around Europe. In this context, the eafip website and the innovation procurement toolkit will be updated with new evidence and good practices (http://eafip.eu/toolkit). The three toolkit modules for policy makers, procurement decision makers and their legal departments provide step-by-step guidance with examples on how to design an innovation procurement policy and how to prepare and implement an innovation procurement.

Please be ensured that when information is provided to the contractor, it is securely bound by confidentiality agreements through its contract with the EC.

Apply for assistance here: https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/EAFIP2019