Events > Promoting Innovation through public procurement: best practices & networking

Event Summary

DG INFSO is co-organising together with DG ENTR and other Commission DGs a conference on "Promoting Innovation through public procurement: best practices & networking" to be held 23-24 March in Brussels.

Event Description

Public procurers, policy makers and other key stakeholders for implementing pre-commercial procurement are warmly invited to this conference. The draft programme of the conference is available online in the Events section of the PCP website. Regarding pre-commercial procurement, the conference has a dual objective. Firstly, to inform and consult stakeholders about the latest developments for further EC support to pre-commercial procurement networks and cross-border PCP pilots. This part of the programme is concentrated on day 1 of the conference. Secondly, to encourage networking between PCP practitioners as well as with other networks working on public procurement and innovation. This part of the programme is concentrated on day 2 of the conference. Concerning opportunities for discussion on pre-commercial procurement during the conference there are in particular: The plenary session on PCP (11-12h time slot on day 1 of the conference): this session intends to stimulate discussion with presentations about further Commission support for PCP, the possibility of EIB loans to public procurers for launching PCP projects, an experience of the Észak-Alföld region in Hungary on using Structural Funds resources to setup PCP programs. The parallel session on PCP in the afternoon of the first day of the conference (15h15-16h15), where experiences from first PCP networking projects in concrete application areas such a health, energy etc will stimulate discussion with feedback on concrete measures that could help to mainstream PCP more widely across Europe. Interested networks can also submit requests for slots to meet particular other networks on day 2 of the event. To express your interest to participate in the conference, please e-mail tolieve.bos@ec.europa.eu (DG INFSO) and bertrand.wert@ec.europa.eu (DG ENTR). The intention is to collect the majority of registration requests for the conference by end of January.