BRINC

Presentation

The COSME co-funded BRINC project unlocked the potential of cross-border public procurement of innovation (PPI) by acting as an Innovation Procurement Broker and establishing a European hub for PPI in a circular economy. Between December 2021 and December 2024, it developed methodologies and built capacity for cross-border innovation brokering.

Project co-funded by the European Union's COSME programme, 2021 – 2024

WHY INNOVATION PROCUREMENT BROKERS?

Although there is a growing desire among public authorities to use procurement to drive the development and uptake of innovation, Public Procurement of Innovation (PPI) remains underexploited.

Public authorities analysing their needs for innovation, and clearly communicating these, will send a strong signal to suppliers that such demands exist and strengthen their incentives for innovation. Public Procurement of Innovation can be facilitated by Innovation Procurement Brokers (IPBs) as they can assist in a needs assessment and facilitate the market dialogue by locating innovative suppliers that can fill the needs.

The task of the Innovation Procurement Brokers will be to overcome barriers like lack of trust and difficulties to identify public authorities with similar needs. They will coordinate a complex process among several buyers in different countries.

Activities

The project aimed to facilitate the identification of public innovation needs, conduct market consultations to identify market capabilities and potential solutions, and help public buyers tap into the innovative capacity of SMEs. The project thrived to enhance the capacity of Public Authorities to engage in cross-border PPI for circular solutions and establish a focal point for engagement between Europe’s leading innovation ecosystems and ambitious public authorities interested in leveraging cross- border PPI to accelerate the circular economy.

BRINC included 5 modules:

  • Capacity-Building & Collaboration: Building networks of Public Authorities and Innovation Procurement Brokers, and learning from real PPI processes;
  • Need Identification: Identifying needs of circular sustainable solutions shared by Public Authorities in several countries;
  • Market Consultation: Identifying existing and potential solutions within the innovation ecosystems and providing insight in relevant procurement procedure to follow;
  • Preparation of Procurement procedure: Choosing and implementing procurement procedures as well as facilitating key decisions during the procurement procedure;
  • Learnings: Capturing lessons learned and formulation of best practices.

THE BRINC PROFESSIONAL NETWORK OF PUBLIC AUTHORITIES INTERESTED IN PPI

The project developed a Professional Network of Public Authorities interested in PPI. The aim was to promote the adoption of PPI by helping public authorities to develop their competences through capacity-building and knowledge-sharing activities, as well as to foster a culture of innovation. Public authorities could get involved in three ways:

  • Lead Buyer: ready to embark on cross-border PPI processes
  • Follower Buyer – interested in pursuing cross-border PPI in the near future and perhaps piggy-backing on the Lead Buyers
  • Learning Buyer – need additional capacity building and are simply interested in learning from the experiences of others

Access the BRINC Professional Network of PA on the SOLVED platform

Partners

BRINC has been led by CLEAN (DK) and its project partners were:

  • Hållbar Utveckling Skåne (SE)

  • Sustainable Business Hub (SE)

  • ACR+, Association of Cities and Regions for sustainable Resource management (BE)

Organisers / Managers