Guide to Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation

• The development of smart specialisation strategies should include the issues of the
market-up-take and of public procurement needs among the starting points for
identifying the fields of specialisation. Funding for instance the development of energyefficient
technologies becomes more credible and has more impact, if the public sector
buys them as a lead customer for applying and testing them in practice;
• To encourage procurers to purchase innovative solutions by rewarding them and by
decreasing the potential innovation costs and financial risks through ERDF con-funding;
• To recognise the procurement phase as strategic in public policy cycles, by associating
procurement departments at a early stage in the definition of a project and of regional
innovation strategies for smart growth;
• To support transparency: for the procurers, to better know the market and stimulate
innovation; and, for businesses (in particular SMEs) to better understand and anticipate
the requirements of contracting authorities;
• To support a change in procurement practices towards more demanding requirements /
specifications to pull innovations to the market (e.g. related to green public procurement
and life-cycle-costing) in order to encourage the procurer to become an 'intelligent'
customer 130 . This can be achieved through better preparatory work and capacity building
in procurement offices both regards the identification of state-of-the-art technologies /
solutions in the market and regards the capacity to manage complex procurement
procedures.
Concrete actions to develop
• To support the capacity building of procurement departments through training,
exchanges of civil servants / procurement officers and exchanges and promotion of good
practices amongst peers 131 (e.g. awarding prizes for the best innovation procurement or
methodology 132 ), and developing guidance 133 , including sector orientation such as for
health 134 , construction 135 , energy efficiency 136 or protective textile 137 , by building
procurers groups and networks 138 ;
• To support procurers to better engage with the market 139 by involving innovation
agencies 140 , chambers of commerce, cluster organisations / Sectoral platforms, SME
support organisations (e.g. Enterprise Europe Network 141 ) and other bodies that can
assist in developing demanding specifications;
• To invite and guide procurers to join forces with others, in order to attain critical mass
that makes it interesting for firms to develop innovative solutions for a bid and in order
to pool capacities (legal, procedural, knowledge on market, technologies and
performance levels, administrative budgets for the procurement processes, etc.);
130
http://www.proinno-europe.eu
131
http://www.comune.torino.it/relint/PPI/
132
http://lcc.sustainable-procurement.org/
133
http://www.europroc.eu/public/docs/europroc__navigate_change__public_procurement_4fgd.pdf
134
http://lowcarbon-healthcare.eu/
135
http://www.sci-network.eu/fileadmin/templates/scinetwork/files/Resource_Centre/Reports/Innovation_in_construction_procurement_-_Preliminary_report.pdf
136
http://www.smart-spp.eu/index.php?id=7633
137
http://www.enprotex.eu
138
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/innovation/policy/public-procurement/index_en.htm#h2-1
139
http://www.smart-spp.eu/fileadmin/template/projects/smart_spp/files/D1-
3_report_on_impacts_on_the_market.pdf
140
http://www.proinno-europe.eu/inno-grips-ii/article/fostering-innovation-through-public-procurement
141
http://www.enterprise-europe-network.ec.europa.eu/index_en.htm
102