Boosting the transformation towards climate-neutral cities, the net-zero economy and open strategic autonomy through Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP)

Projects are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:

• Public procurers stimulate from demand side the competitive development of market ready innovative solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that can contribute to the transition of local communities towards climate neutrality, whilst strengthening EU open strategic autonomy;
• Public procurers leverage PCP to bring to the market innovative solutions in sectors relevant for climate change mitigation (such as energy efficiency in buildings, production and use of renewable energy, sustainable and smart mobility, digitalisation etc.) and implement those innovative solutions in the participant cities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions;
• Public procurers drive innovation and increase resilience in the supply chain by opening up opportunities for innovative companies established in the European Union's Member States and Horizon Europe Associated Countries, in particular SMEs and Startups, to access the public procurement market and scale up their business;
• Increased opportunities for wide market uptake and economies of scale for the supply side through increased demand for innovative solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the local level, wide publication of results and where relevant contribution to standardisation, regulation or certification;
• Present the expected greenhouse gas emission reduction in the participating cities by 2030 and 2050, in comparison to a baseline established at the beginning of the project.

By closing the gap between supply and demand in a way that reinforces EU open strategic autonomy, PCPs can make a key contribution to enhancing the European Union’s economy and competitiveness^[1]. In order to master the green and digital transition and make our cities climate-neutral and liveable places, European public procurers need to lead by example by procuring more solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This topic therefore focuses on forward looking procurement of R&D to bring to the market new solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that can increase Europe’s resilience and preparedness to tackle the climate challenge.

On the road towards climate-neutral cities this topic addresses the lack and fragmentation of public demand for innovative solutions. Europe’s companies, in particular SMEs and Startups, are indispensable in delivering the required innovations. As past experience shows that pre-commercial procurement opens up the procurement market for startups and enables the public sector to address societal challenges more effectively, public procurers should make more strategic use of PCP.

This topic supports public procurers, specifically local authorities, to collectively implement PCPs to drive innovation from the demand side and open up wider commercialisation opportunities for companies in Europe to take or maintain international leadership in new markets for net-zero technologies that can deliver solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The aim is to leverage PCP to encourage the development and to provide a first customer reference for the piloting, installation and validation of breakthrough innovations.

PCP actions target consortia of procurers with similar needs that want to procure together the development of innovative solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in cities. This topic does not provide direct funding to developers, industry or research organisations to perform R&D. They will be able to respond to the call for tenders launched by consortia of procurers funded under this call. Specific guidance on PCP actions and minimum eligibility requirements can be found in General Annexes H of the Horizon Europe work programme.

Continuous dialogue between demand and supply side is required for the success of PCPs, therefore the effective involvement of end users (e.g. cities teams that would need to adopt climate mitigation solutions, regional structures cooperating with cities on climate mitigation, citizens etc.) needs to be considered in the proposal. Furthermore, to stimulate dialogue with the supply side, public procurers are required to organise an open market consultation before launching the procurement and to promote the call for tenders widely across Europe to potentially interested suppliers.

Proposals should demonstrate sustainability of the action beyond the life of the project. They should demonstrate how the project is anchored in a clear strategy to provide climate-neutral cities and enhance the economy in a sustainable way through stronger early adoption of innovative solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Activities covered should include cooperation with policy makers to reinforce the national policy frameworks and mobilise substantial additional national budgets for PCP and innovation procurement in general beyond the scope of the project.

Involvement of procurement decision makers is needed to ensure that end solution(s) are adopted by local public buyers, increasing the societal impact of the related research activities. Therefore, procurers should declare in the proposal their interest to pursue deployment of solutions resulting from the PCP in case the PCP delivers successful solutions and indicate whether they will (1) procure successful solution(s) as part of the PCP, (2) launch a separate follow-up procurement after the PCP to buy such type of solutions, (3) adopt successful solutions without the need to procure them (e.g. in case of open source solutions), (4) foresee financial or regulatory incentives for others to adopt successful solutions (e.g. in case the final end-users of the solutions are not the procurers but for example citizens). In these four cases, the procurers can implement the project as a fast-track PCP (see general annex H). In the first case, the procurers must foresee the budget in the proposal to purchase at least one solution during the PCP. In the second case, the procurers should include in the proposal a deliverable that prepares the follow-up procurement to purchase such type of solution(s) after the PCP. In the first and third case, the procurers must foresee sufficient time during the project to deploy and validate that the solutions function well after installation. In the fourth case, the procurers can use financial support to third parties to provide financial incentives to final end-users to adopt the solutions, with a maximum budget of EUR 200 000. Projects funded under this topic, which target the higher end of the budget range, should demonstrate a greater degree of ambition in terms of innovation level and/or deployment scope. The selection of the third parties to be supported under the grant will be based on an external review by independent experts of the proposed work.

Projects funded under this topic should include at least three cities of the 112 selected ones for the EU Mission on Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities^[2], and the lead procurer from the buyers group should be one of these 112 cities. In addition to the buyers’ group that will implement the PCP, projects are encouraged to actively cooperate with an additional group of follower cities in the preparation and follow up of the procurement, including possibly also in the testing of solutions, to smoothen faster uptake of solutions to the wider followers group. Collaboration amongst the projects financed under this topic and with the ‘Climate-Neutral Smart cities’ Mission Platform is essential to the increase impact and coherence of the action. Appropriate provisions for activities and resources aimed at enforcing this collaboration should be included in the work plan of the proposal. The Mission Platform will support cities with the preparatory work for the PCP. The Mission Platform will also support the upscaling and replicability of the developed solutions, and the monitoring of the impact of the projects using a common methodology and clearly established indicators. The collaboration with the Mission Platform must be formalised through a Memorandum of Understanding to be concluded as soon as possible after the project starting date. To ensure that the new solutions are appropriately identified, the projects should plan for liaising with the different other Horizon funded projects, partnerships and initiatives that promote innovation in the different domains (such as CCAM Partnership, 2ZERO Partnership, and Built4People Partnership, Circular Cities and Regions, and CIVITAS) to avoid overlaps or contradictory conclusions.

This action supports the follow-up to the July 2023 Communication on EU Missions assessment^[3].

[1] General Annex H to the work programme provides for specific conditions for PCP such as place of performance and commercialisation conditions that can require the majority of the procured R&D activities and later commercialisation/production of developed solutions to take place in the European Union's Member States and Associated Countries, as well as the possibility to limit the participation to the PCP procurement to economic operators that are established in the European Union's Member States and Associated Countries if there are sufficient economic operators in these territories that can develop the requested solutions. These conditions apply to this topic.

[2] The EU Mission on Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities aims to deliver 100 climate-neutral and smart cities by 2030 and ensure that these cities act as experimentation and innovation hubs to enable all European cities to follow suit by 2050. On 28 April 2022, the Commission announced the 100 EU cities that will participate in the Mission. In addition, 12 cities have been selected from countries associated or expected to be associated the Horizon Europe programme.

[3] COM(2023) 457 final and SWD(2023) 260 final