Suzan Ikävalko

Culminatum Innovation Ltd Oy

EU PreCo-project

Innovative Pre-Commercial Public Procurament /

eHealth

What is PreCo?

• A coordination action funded by the FP-7

program of the European Commission aiming

at ”Enhancing Innovation in Pre-commercial

Public Purchasing Processes”

• Consists of ten partners from seven EU

countries, leadpartner and coordinator

Cuminatum Innovation Ltd Oy (Finland).

PreCo actions

• Benchmark: Collecting and analysing best practices

• Facilitate discussion between procurers and suppliers.

• Establish a thematic network of experts on PCP.

• Identify common ground for guidelines, policy

recommendations and PCP strategies. Delivered to the

Commission by the end of 2011.

• Joint events and public PreCo website

www.preco.share2solve.org

PreCo aims to identify

• How public authorities can achieve highly innovative

solution through greater market engagement

( In cases where all the aspects of the procured item

are not known initially, but can only be established by

a collaborative R&D process ).

• Thematic focus on eHealth and eEnergy

• Approach

- User driven open innovation (procurer, suppliers

and users), pilot procurements in EU Member States

What is PCP? ( COM 2007:799)

Important aspects in PCP

• Risk-benefit sharing

- the procurer does not own the results, opportunities

for SMEs

• Competitive development in phases

- Curiosity driven exploratory research, followed by

phases where solutions are step-wise selected or

abandoned,

• Separation of R&D phase from procurament of

commercial volumes of end-products

- allows the public procurer to find the best possible

market /user driven solution

eHealth PCP practices in Europe,

preliminary findings

• PCP projects are still rare at least as text book cases.

Mixed elements from Public-Private Innovation, Market

Dialogue, PCP and Commercial regular Procurament

are used.

• PCP is used in complex product-service systems

- in thematic fields such as health, elderly and social

care.

• Total solutions are procured more often than

components.

Procurement of eHealth

PCP process can help to specify, design and

procure innovative ICT solutions as well as

complete healthcareservices, which include ICT.

Interoperability is not a technical problem as such -

Public procurers need to have :

• Knowledge and willigness to DEMAND and

PROCURE technically interoperable solutions

• Resources: Long term perspective (cost/benefit) in

stead of short term cost reduction.

Tekes ”PCP” funding instrument

CHANGE OF MINDSET NEEDED?

suzan.ikavalko@culminatum.fi

+358-50-5834292

THANK YOU !MUCHAS GRACIAS !

MOLTES GRACIES!

Questions to stimulate the discussion

1. Do you have any experiences of PCP like

development processes in the field of eHealth,

including user driven co-generation and Living

Labs?

2. If yes – what have been the main lessons

learnt and main benefits/gains?

3. Can you define the most crucial obstacles for

using PCP type approaches as preparatory

phase for commercial procurement in eHealth

sector?