General conditions

(Please see the full text of the Rules of Contest)

1. Admissibility conditions:

In order to be eligible, the applicants must must comply with the following eligibility criteria:

· Eligible applicants are any public and/or private procurer, individuals/natural persons and/or legal entities supporting the use of innovation procurement established in one of the Member States including overseas countries and territories (OCTs) or Associated Countries to Horizon Europe.

· The awarded procurement/procurement practice must relate to completed or ongoing initiatives started after 1 January 2019. In the case of ongoing activities, only work completed by the submission deadline will be considered for the prize;

· Applicants can only apply to one of the two categories for the same set of activities. If the applicant submits two or more applications with the same set of activities, the awarding Authority may ask the applicant to choose one or more of them to be withdrawn. If the applicant should refuse to withdraw one or more of them, then the awarding Authority may decide to consider only the latest submitted application and the rest of them will be declared ineligible.

· The awarded procurement/procurement practice must have taken place in a Member State (including overseas countries and territories, OCTs) or in an Associated Country to Horizon Europe;

Proposal page limits and layout: Applications are limited to maximum 15 pages (Part B). Evaluators will not consider any additional pages.

Mandatory annex (to be uploaded): the awarded procurement/procurement practice must relate to completed or ongoing initiatives started after 1 January 2019. Therefore, the applicant must submit as an annex a supporting document that proves the starting date of the initiative. This document must be uploaded in the system separately from Part B and have a page limit of 10 pages.

2. Eligible countries: Member States including overseas countries and territories (OCTs) or Associated Countries to Horizon Europe.

3. Other eligibility conditions:

Winners of all former European Innovation Procurement Awards editions, as well as runners-up of the previous edition 2023-2024, are not eligible;

· Applicants that have already received an EU or Euratom prize cannot receive a second prize for the same activities.

4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion: described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes

5. Evaluation and award:

Award criteria:

1. Transformation – stimulating innovation procurement with the aim to ensure a sustainable and inclusive growth. In this criterion, the applicant should bear in mind that this transformation refers to the shift into (a) buying the process of innovation (research and development services); (b) buying the outcomes of innovation; or (c) the establishment of innovation procurement friendly frameworks which include tools to measure results of support actions.

2. Uptake – the innovative procurement practice or action is replicable and scalable, and therefore, contributes to providing, more efficient and effective solutions. In this criterion, among others, the applicant should provide information (KPIs) about how the procurement practice/action is replicable and scalable, the number of countries, entities and/or sectors where the solution has been implemented and/or replicated; or about how it has provided more efficient and effective solutions.

3. Collaboration – demonstrated co-operation linked to the innovation procurement practice. Special attention should be paid to the establishment of synergies, to the promotion of best practices, to the support to capacity building and skill development, and to the efforts of knowledge sharing between stakeholders within the different territories, especially among those at different state of maturity in innovation procurement. In this criterion, among others, the applicant should provide information (KPIs) about the number of partners (including start-ups, universities, academics, public and private organisations) involved in this collaboration; publications; conferences and events organised/attended to share knowledge, actions implemented to foster collaboration; or about the ratio of engagement and influence within the innovation ecosystem.

4. Innovative SMEs and start-ups access to procurement markets – how the innovative procurement practise or action facilitates the access of innovative SMEs and start-ups (including but not limited to EIC beneficiaries) to procurement markets. Complementarity and synergies with other EIC initiatives aimed at supporting and fostering innovation procurement in the European Union must be taken into account.

5. Societal impact – procurement practices/actions with a demonstrated positive quantitative and qualitative impact on society, with special emphasis to achieving the green deal and digital transformation priorities. In this criterion, among others, the applicant should provide information (KPIs) about the number of purchased and deployed

Submission and evaluation processes

Applications will be subject to a formal evaluation by a jury in each category.

Scoring and thresholds:

If there are more than 60 applications in one category, there will be a pre-selection phase in that category to select the best 60 applications to pass to the jury review. Otherwise, all eligible applications will pass directly to jury review. The 6 best ranked applications in each category will be invited for a hearing with the jury in Brussels. This hearing may take place remotely.

For applications with the same score, the pre-selection panel/jury will determine a priority order according to the following approach: the score for the criterion No 5 will be given a weight of 2 and the score for criterion No 2 will be given a weight of 1.5. If two or more applications still tie for any rank or category, the prize will be equally divided and awarded to all applications with the same score.

On the basis of the evaluation by the jury (and after the mandatory checks: ethics review, security scrutiny, legal entity validation, non-exclusion, double funding and plagiarism, etc), the awarding authority will decide on the award of the prize.