On the 6^th, 10^th and 11^th of July 2023, the Italian partner, National Research Council (CNR), organized, with the support of the project coordinator, provider of the training for the trainers, three masterclasses on the GoToWebinar platform, which were followed by a total of 30 students (a mix of public procurers, representatives of small and medium enterprises and CNR researchers and technicians).

The lessons were designed and provided by the professor Sara Bedin, representant of the subcontractor Lattanzio KIBS ( https://www.lattanziokibs.com/). Sara Bedin is one of the top experts in innovation public procurement strategy in Europe (previously trained about the PPI4MED programme in Phase 1 of “Training of trainers”).

During the three days of training, Professor Bedin dealt with topics such as:

Key definitions and concepts

• Public procurement vs. subsidies

• Public procurement of goods vs. procurement of (commercial or R&D) services

• Public procurement for innovation vs. public procurement of innovation

• (Applied) research and development vs. incremental innovation

• Innovation public procurement vs. innovative public procurement

Innovation procurement instruments (legal framework and empirical evidence about results and market impacts)

• Open market consultation process

• Pre-commercial public procurement vs. traditional procurement of R&D services

• Public procurement of innovative solutions vs. public procurement of commercial solutions

• Innovation partnership vs. separation of R&D procurement from the deployment of commercial volumes of end-products/services

Demand-side and supply-side participation and collaboration schema

• Joint vs. Coordinated procurement

• Subcontracting vs. teaming agreements

• How the access of new innovative players (e.g. startups, SMEs) to the public procurement market can be facilitated

• How the risks and benefits of designing, prototyping, and testing new products and services can be shared between procurers and suppliers

The innovation procurement end-to-end process

• Need assessment and elicitation

• Need description and functional/performance requirements elaboration

• State of the art assessment and Open Market Consultation

• Business case modeling

• Tendering

• Awarding

• Contract Management

• Post-contractual management

Innovation procurement policy implementation in Europe and Innovation procurement best practices.

Funding innovation public procurement programme and projects: do’s and don’ts

The training has been conducted in an informal way with all the materials of Sara Bedin both comprehensive and informative, as said by some of the trainees. The more complex topics were made easier through case studies. CNR hopes it is also impactful and may really contribute to the development of PPI in Italy.