InnoBuyer - Call for challengers is open and its program is financed by the European Commission.

InnoBuyer offers financing, expertise and access to top SMEs to accelerate the development of innovative solutions to address the needs of organizations: from identifying unmet innovation needs, to procuring innovation, including co-creating solutions with innovative companies.

Public (state, regional and local authorities) and private organizations that have challenges that need to be solved can apply to the open call. A total budget of up to EUR 1.1 million is planned, and it will be available to support 15 entities with unsatisfied needs for innovation from any sector.

Public and private organizations (challengers) can apply to InnoBuyer by proposing up to 4 unmet needs for innovation, and the maximum amount of grants that can be obtained per applicant is up to EUR 41.5 thousand.

15 selected entities will join the InnoBuyer program to participate in 4 support actions:

·Action #1: Expertise and financial support up to EUR 10,000 for the development of a "Challenge Description" that represents an improved version of the initially submitted unmet need, taking into account the inputs of other relevant departments in the organization such as IT, legal, management. The goal is to have a business-oriented text that can be attractive and well understood by innovative small and medium-sized enterprises.

· Action #2: Training and financial support of up to EUR 10,000 for learning and adopting the latest procurement and market consulting methodologies, attending market dialogue sessions to exchange unmet needs with potential solvers and identify interesting solutions. The InnoBuyer Consortium will launch an open call to attract innovative SMEs that will propose solutions to challenges developed in Action #1, and challengers are expected to actively participate in the evaluation and selection of solvers and appropriate proposed solutions.

· Action #3: (only for public organizations) Monitoring and financial support up to EUR 6,500 for the co-creation, implementation, testing and evaluation of the pilot project. In cooperation with innovative SMEs, to address the unmet need for innovation described in Action #1 with the solver selected in Action #2 (the solver can receive up to EUR 58,500 for pilot development).

· Action #4: (only for public organizations) Legal expertise and financial support of up to EUR 15,000 for the creation and delivery of the Terms of Reference (ToR) for a simplified form of procurement of innovations in order to procure the solution developed in Action #3.

Applications for the InnoBuyer call nuntil 31.3.2023, until 17.00 CET. 

Guide for applicants

 More information and call documentation is available here.

Source: InnoBuyer.eu