The first INPROCAP webinar, held on 17 October 2025, officially launched the project’s series of trainings and capacity-building webinars. The session introduced participants to the fundamentals of innovation procurement and outlined the structure of the forthcoming INPROCAP training manuals and learning pathway.
The webinar brought together public procurers, Big Science Organisations (BSOs), Industrial Liaison Officers (ILOs), and innovation stakeholders interested in leveraging procurement as a strategic instrument to foster innovation.
Setting the scene: What is INPROCAP?
The webinar opened with an overview of the INPROCAP project, highlighting its main objective: to strengthen innovation procurement capabilities within the Big Science ecosystem.
Innovation procurement remains an underused mechanism in the BSO value chain, despite its strong potential to transform public spending into innovation opportunities for European industry. INPROCAP addresses this gap by supporting ILOs and BSOs with practical tools, training, and advisory services, while engaging innovative SMEs and start-ups across Europe.
Understanding innovation procurement
A central part of the webinar focused on clarifying what innovation procurement actually means in practice.
Innovation procurement can refer to:
- Buying the process of innovation, such as R&D services with partial or full outcomes
- Buying the outcomes of innovation, by procuring solutions that are new or significantly improved
- Innovating within the procurement process itself, through more flexible and dialogue-based procedures
Participants were introduced to the EU legal definition of innovation procurement, as well as its relevance for addressing unmet needs, complex challenges, and long-term strategic goals in the public sector.
Key innovation procurement instruments
The webinar provided a structured overview of the main innovation-friendly procurement instruments, including:
- Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) and Public Procurement of Innovative Solutions (PPI)
- Innovation Partnership
- Preliminary Market Consultations
- Functional specifications
- Competitive dialogue and competitive procedure with negotiation
- Value engineering approaches
Real-life examples illustrated how these instruments can be used to involve the market early, encourage innovative suppliers, and reduce risks for public buyers when procuring novel solutions.
Why training matters: Introducing the INPROCAP training manuals
The second part of the webinar presented the INPROCAP training manuals, which form the backbone of the project’s capacity-building approach.
The manuals are designed to:
- Build practical innovation procurement skills
- Provide ready-to-use tools for real procurement cases
- Strengthen market intelligence and legal understanding
- Support cross-BSO collaboration
- Enable consistent, high-quality procurement practices
Three tailored manuals are being developed for:
- Big Science Organisations
- Industrial Liaison Officers
- Companies and innovative suppliers
Their content is based on EU frameworks, existing methodologies, and extensive stakeholder feedback gathered through surveys, workshops, and consultations.
Modular learning and practical focus
Participants were introduced to the modular structure of the training programme, covering topics such as:
- General introduction to innovation procurement
- Needs assessment and market analysis
- Preliminary market consultation
- PCP, PPI, and Innovation Partnership
- Competitive dialogue and negotiation procedures
- Management of intellectual property rights
The training emphasises hands-on learning, including case studies, templates, flowcharts, evaluation frameworks, and real-world examples that can be directly applied in practice.
What comes next?
This first webinar is part of a broader training journey running throughout 2025-2026, combining webinars, hybrid events, and on-site training sessions. All materials, recordings, and tools will be made available through the INPROCAP website and online toolbox.
By launching this series, INPROCAP aims to support public procurers, ILOs and companies in moving from theory to practice — using procurement not as a barrier, but as a driver of innovation.
