Six finalists announced for the 2022 European Innovation Procurement Awards

On 19 October 2022 the European Innovation Council announced the six finalists for the second edition of the European Innovation Procurement Awards. The prize is run under the Horizon Europe umbrella and implemented by the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency. It aims to recognise public and private buying organisations that use procurement strategically to stimulate innovation, speed market entry for new suppliers and address pressing societal needs.

An independent jury shortlisted six finalists after a competitive process that began with 14 semi-finalists. The final winners will be revealed at the EIC Summit on 8 December 2022. Each category winner will receive €75,000 and each runner-up €25,000. All finalists will be invited to a network of pioneering procurers to share experimentation and lessons learned.

Finalists by category

How the selection worked

The shortlist was produced by an independent jury following a multi-stage selection. The process saw remote interviews with 14 semi-finalists prior to the jury naming six finalists. Winners and runners-up in each of the three award categories will be decided by the same jury and announced at the EIC Summit on 8 December 2022.

Why the EU is promoting innovation procurement

The European Commission and the EIC present innovation procurement as a demand-side policy lever that helps convert research and prototypes into tangible products and services. Commissioner Mariya Gabriel framed procurement as part of the New European Innovation Agenda and said it is an instrument for stimulating deep tech innovation from smaller firms while modernising public services. The awards are intended to elevate examples of public buyers using procurement deliberately to pull innovation into the market.

Context and practical challenges

Procurement as a lever for innovation is attractive in policy terms because it creates customers for high risk or unevenly commercialised technologies. It can create routes to market for SMEs and start-ups that struggle to break into public sector supply chains. In practice, however, procurers face legal, organisational and capacity constraints. Public procurement rules aim to guarantee transparency and equal treatment which can make outcome-oriented or experimental procurement legally complex. Many contracting authorities are risk averse and lack the internal skills to design R&D procurements or to manage staged, iterative procurement contracts.

Where awards and recognition help is in signalling political will, creating exemplars and encouraging peer learning between mature and less experienced procurers. The monetary prizes are modest relative to procurement budgets and will not on their own transform routines. Lasting change requires updated procurement frameworks, sustained buyer–supplier partnerships, investment in procurement skills and measurable KPIs that prove commercial and societal impact over time.

What to watch and what is not yet proven

The awards will draw attention to concrete cases. The useful next step to evaluate their impact will be follow-up evidence on scalability and replication. Key metrics to watch include numbers of SMEs and start-ups that gained first public contracts, cross-border replication of tender models, measurable reductions in cost or improvements in service quality and indicators of job creation. Without such evidence, awards risk remaining symbolic.

The Commission and EISMEA say the awards encourage buyer–supplier cooperation. That cooperation is necessary but does not remove systemic barriers such as fragmentation of demand across regions, differing national interpretations of procurement rules and limited budget horizons for innovation procurement projects.

Background: the award within the EIC prizes landscape

The European Innovation Procurement Awards are one of several EIC prizes aimed at promoting innovation across Europe. In 2022 the event formed part of a set of recognitions that also included awards such as the EU Prize for Women Innovators, the European Capital of Innovation Awards and the European Social Innovation Competition. The EU frames these awards as tools to boost competitiveness, ease route-to-market for SMEs and contribute to green and digital transitions.

Critical perspective

Recognition programmes like EUIPA are useful for sharing good practice but they should not be presented as a short-term fix for deeper structural challenges. The scale of change required in public procurement to systematically favour innovative offers requires legal clarity on experimental procurement, targeted budget lines, upgraded procurement skills and incentives to aggregate demand across regions and sectors. Observers should demand follow-up reporting from the Commission about whether highlighted procurements produced repeatable procurement templates, quantifiable market entry for SMEs and measurable improvements in public service outcomes.

Practical information and contacts

Takeaway

The EUIPA finalists illustrate growing interest among European public authorities in using procurement intentionally to pull innovation into public services and strategic sectors. The awards serve as a platform to showcase experiments and build a community of practice. Realising the broader ambitions of growth for SMEs, better public services and progress on green and digital goals depends on converting these isolated examples into repeatable procurement models, improving procurement capacity, and collecting hard evidence on uptake and impact.