What is an Innovation Partnership?
An Innovation Partnership is a special procurement procedure under EU Directive 2014/24/EU that enables contracting authorities to procure innovative solutions not yet available on the market. It combines the development phase with subsequent acquisition in a single procedure.
When is it Used?
The Innovation Partnership is used when:
- A need exists that cannot be met by products or services already available on the market
- Research and development are required to create the solution
- The contracting authority wishes to procure the developed solution without conducting a separate procurement procedure
Procedure
- Publication: The authority publishes an EU-wide notice describing the innovation need
- Selection stage: Companies apply and demonstrate their capabilities, especially R&D capacity
- Negotiation phase: The authority negotiates with selected candidates on research approaches, milestones, and pricing
- Development phase: Selected partners develop the innovative solution in defined phases with interim evaluations
- Procurement: After successful development, the authority can directly procure the solution
Key Features
- Phased reduction: The authority may reduce the number of partners after each phase
- Intellectual property: IP arrangements must be clearly defined in the agreement
- Proportionality: The estimated procurement value must be proportionate to the required investment
- No circumvention: The procedure must not be used to avoid competition
Practical Relevance
While still relatively uncommon, Innovation Partnerships are gaining traction in areas such as digitalization, sustainability, and healthcare. They offer research-intensive companies and start-ups unique access to public contracts that would not be possible through traditional procurement procedures.