The PPI4MED project aims to build capacity oin Innovation Procurement for the three actors, buyers (public procurers), sellers (private companies) and national research centers. To do so, the PPI4MED has developed an extensive training programme that will be executed in a virtual format (to reach as many interested parties as possible) and will have two phases:

• Phase 1 or “Training of trainers”, in which each country will select three Public Procurement experts (legal, financial, and technical), and they will receive training on PPI4MED, Innovation Procurement, and the platform built for this course. These experts will be part of the teaching team of the 2^nd phase.
• Phase 2 or “National Capacitation Programme”, in which each country will select, from within the Living Lab attendees, the students that will receive the training. Each country will adapt the timeframe of the project to its own needs and specificities, and the experts trained in Phase 1 will be the teachers of the masterclasses that will take place in this Phase 2.

On 5^th June 2023, the Phase 1 of the training programme in Innovation Procurement was launched in an online session that gathered all the experts selected by the countries. In this first session, the ENI CBC MED programme and PPI4MED project were presented, and an introduction to the Innovation Procurement instrument, as well as how to navigate the platform. In the following two sessions of Phase 1, the material will be thoroughly studied through masterclasses on the legal, technical, and financial aspects of Innovation Procurement, and several case studies.

After Phase 1 is completed and the experts and properly trained in Innovation Procurement and the PPI4MED model, each country will launch its National Capacitation Programmes.