Maria da Graça Carvalho participated in the High Level meeting on the subject of "Public Procurement of Innovation". which took place in the European Parliament in Brussels. The meeting was co-organized by Daniel Calleja Crespo; Deputy Director General of DG enterprise and Industry and Malcolm Harbour; MEP, Chairman of the IMCO Committee of the European Parliament.
During the meting there were presented and discussed the results of the feasibility study on a European scheme to support public procurement of innovation. The study is published at a highly relevant point in time, as the political context is subject to much interest and activity. This includes the current discussion on the Horizon 2020 programme, the revision of the 2004 directive on procurement, and European industrial policy. "European scheme to support public procurement of innovation" has been conducted by a consortium composed of the Manchester University Business School (Lead partner), Corvers Procurement Services, ICLEI and the Technopolis group.
Maria da Graça Carvalho made her intervention as moderator for the 1st Panel Session: Linking Innovation Procurement to industrial policy and to innovative SME support: How the European innovation procurement scheme could support industrial policy? How innovation procurement for industrial policy could be developed within Horizon 2020 and COSME2? How to optimise the impact on innovative SMEs? How to link EU innovation procurement support with national schemes? (e.g. SBRI (UK), SBIR (NL), PCP scheme (BE, Flanders); INNODEMANDA (SP), etc.).
This panel included the interventions of Silvia Bartolini (DG ENTR, Member of Commissioner and Vice-President Antonio Tajani cabinet); Collan Murray (Transport For London - Public Procurer); Fergus Harradence (Business Innovation & Skills (UK) - Innovation Agency); Lutz Walter (EURATEX - The European Apparel and Textile Confederation); Christophe Veys (Flemish Innovation Agency IWT); Dolores Adamski (GREX - Chamber of Commerce, Grenoble, SME organisation); Juan Manuel Garrido (Spanish National Ministry). The Rapporteur was Katja Reppel, Deputy Head of Unit, DG ENTR.
The "Innovation Union" Flagship of the Europe 2020 strategy called for the European Commission to provide guidance and set up a financial support mechanism to help contracting authorities to implement procurement of innovation. This is to be achieved in a non-discriminatory and open manner, to pool demand, to draw up common specifications, and to promote SME access. In December 2011, the publication of the EC proposal: "Horizon 2020 - The Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2014-2020)" confirmed procurement of innovation, with both Pre-Commercial Procurement & Public Procurement of Innovation, as a new policy tools to support smart, sustainable and inclusive growth and to foster the business competitiveness in the European Union.
In order to prepare the future developments in the field of innovation procurement, Daniel Calleja Crespo (Deputy Director General of DG enterprise and Industry) and Malcolm Harbour (MEP, Chairman of the IMCO Committee) co-Chaired the exchange of views based on for the findings of the study . They engaged discussion with IMCO and ITRE Members and received views from European procurers, innovation agencies, venture capitalists, academics and researchers, SME organisation and industry representatives. Scenarios sketched by the study were discussed, as well as three main aspects: implementation structure, budget figures and fields of deployment (in line with Societal Challenges or industrial policy sectors).
More information on the previous meeting organized in the framework of the study on 31.03.2011 under this link: http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/innovation/policy/lead-market-initiative/pp-conf2_en.htm)