In the first semester, all project partners carried out two linked activities: stakeholder meeting and questionnaires for stakeholders. These activities intended to share the main objectives of the project with their national, regional and local stakeholders, so as to additionally identify critical issues and ideas for pre-commercial/innovation public procurement (PCP/IPP) policies. Both activities aimed at screening the state of the art, the implementation in terms of governance, the identification of the role of the stakeholders in terms of IPP designing and participation, defining connections between PCP/IPP and RIS3 and tackling the monitoring and evaluation mechanisms of each partner in their respective regions.
The result of these activities pointed out that the level of the development of IPP in the majority of the regions is still in an early stage and greater efforts are still needed. However, project partners’ stakeholders highly rate the participation in the process of development by consulting and collaborating with the leaders of the policy instruments.
Despite the early stage of development of PCP/IPP in most of the regions, some needs and facts were common of all project partners:
- Stakeholders as well as potential beneficiaries need to have more information about what PCP and IPP are. Nevertheless, for all project’s regions, contributing to the policy instrument is evaluated as necessary and important by the majority of stakeholders, therefore it is seen as part of systemic development and innovation creation and a tool for strategic management, change and improvement for every region.
- Due to the complexity and current bureaucratic requirements, the creation of a network of facilitators should be necessary. This network would provide support to contracting authorities by identifying their needs for innovations as well as prepare and describe the specification needs and offer legal advisory.
- Stakeholders agree that PCP/IPP may take a longer time to execute in comparison to regular public procurement, although it may pay off in terms of better results and cost-effectiveness in the long run. In this sense, to foster the uptake of PCP/IPP, financial support measures are desirable.
- When it comes to the preparation of the new programme period 2021-2027 in terms of financing, the timing is ideal for all regions as the preparation work has just started and there are good chances to influence in the themes and contents of the policy instruments.
