EIC Innovation Procurement Programme

Overview

The European Innovation Council (EIC)  fosters strong partnerships between EIC top-notch innovators and public or private buyers, investors, technology giants and industrial leaders to drive impactful collaborations, and to modernise their services for the benefit of the EU economy.

With this aim, the EIC is embarking on its new and reinforced Innovation Procurement support programme: Strategic Use of Innovation Procurement.

The main goal of this unique programme is to facilitate access to procurement markets in Europe and at global level, ensuring increased market opportunities for innovative SMEs and start-ups while supporting their scale-up and growth. The activities of this programme are open to all EIC beneficiaries from EIC Pathfinder, EIC Transition, EIC Accelerator, Seal of Excellence and Women Tech EU.

By strengthening the link between demand  and supply of innovation, this EIC programme contains a variety of services tailored to the needs of each respective stakeholder:

• SPIN4EIC Strategic Innovation Procurement Programme
• InnoMatch: Proof-of-concept demonstrations and pilot testing of EIC companies' innovations

Eager to learn more? Discover everything about the EIC Innovation Procurement Programme with our curated video playlist: 

Join our LinkedIn group

You can join the EIC Innovation Procurement Programme Group on LinkedIn - a space for connecting with top EIC innovators, forward-thinking buyers, and industry leaders across Europe and beyond. 

Join the group

SPIN4EIC: Strategic Innovation Procurement

SPIN4EIC is an innovative and unique flagship initiative from the EIC dedicated to delivering high-value support services to EIC innovators. Its purpose is to enhance their ability to access procurement markets both in Europe and worldwide. The programme is committed to promoting the entry of outstanding EIC innovators into procurement markets, and to facilitate their expansion in the ecosystem to create matching opportunities with procurers.

SPIN4EIC also specifically supports public buyers, to elevate their procurement capabilities with unparalleled support services tailored for innovation.

Visit the SPIN4EIC main page

What does this flagship initiative offer?

• A Community of public and private buyers interested in the solutions offered by the EIC innovators
• Assistance to enhance the capacity of public buyers to purchase innovative solutions to tackle public challenges, opening at the same time their procurement markets to SMEs and startups
• Assistance to EIC innovators to submit tenders in public and private sector procurement opportunities in Europe and at a global level
• Enhanced capacity for EIC Beneficiaries to find business opportunities through procurement and take part as potential suppliers in bids in Europe as well as in non-EU countries

How is it implemented?

• Tailored assistance to EIC innovators to take part as bidders in public (including procurement of R&D services) and private sector Innovation Procurement tender processes, in and outside Europe. It is a free service accessible through an open call that will be open until end of May 2026.Assistance dedicated to Public Buyers in the EU MS and Horizon Europe Associated Countries, contributing to the enhancement of their capacity to purchase innovative solutions. Public buyers receive assistance for designing and implementing their innovation procurement projects through an ongoing call that will be open until the end of April 2026.
• Pitching sessions bringing together key EIC innovators and buyers in the frame of many relevant European events.
• Innovation Procurement Academies dedicated to EIC beneficiaries, offering free high-quality knowledge and online training to develop business relationships as innovation procurers to both public and private buyers, within the EU internal market and in selected third countries and International Organisations.
• EIC Innovation Procurement Toolkit with hands-on practical information focused on the supply side on how to access procurement markets in Europe and at a global level.

EIC Innovation Procurement Community, powered by SPIN4EIC 

SPIN4EIC provides EIC Beneficiaries and Buyers with a Community to share experience, best practices and contacts. This Community is structured into a restricted group dedicated to public buyers, and 5 thematic groups dedicated to EIC Beneficiaries:

• SPIN4EIC Agriculture, Food and Beverage Group
• SPIN4EIC Construction, Infrastructure and Manufacturing Group
• SPIN4EIC Digital Transformation Group
• SPIN4EIC Energy, Water, Environment, Sustainability and Mobility Group
• SPIN4EIC Health and Life Science Group

Our impact

SPIN4EIC already achieved impactful results for the European innovation procurement ecosystem: 

• In total, 108 EIC awardees are part of our growing pool of assisted companies.
• Thanks to SPIN4EIC services delivered since March 2024, EIC awardees have submitted 65 opportunities, for a total value of around EUR 46.9 M and won 24 so far, for a total value of around EUR 16.6 M.
• In total, 11 pitching events brought together EIC awardees with public and private buyers, sparking meaningful business connections. 

In total, 19 European public buyers are assisted with 62 innovation procurement assistance cases, reinforcing their capacity to launch innovation procurement tenders.

Implementing service providers

InnoMatch: Proof-of-concept demonstrations and pilot testing of EIC companies' innovations

InnoMatch is a new action of the EIC Innovation Procurement Programme, running until September 2027. 

Why InnoMatch?

Finding first customers is one of the main barriers that is hampering access to the market and commercialisation of innovative solutions developed by innovative SMEs. To mainstream the uptake of innovation procurement, InnoMatch will support pilot testing or proof-of-concept demonstration of innovative solutions created by EIC beneficiaries for public and private procurement customers. InnoMatch will support a total of 38 pilots, covering up to EUR 60,000 per pilot. 

InnoMatch will:

• Recruit and engage private and public buyers to participate in an innovation demand-driven programme.
• Setup, deploy and assess a competitive, transparent and fair open call framework to select EICs (EIC-backed innovators) to carry out innovative solutions pilots  on the services of committed Buyers (public and private procurement customers).
• Implement a programme to support the pilot’s implementation and increase chances that the successfully piloted solutions are deployed by multiple buyers. .
• Establish synergies with projects, networks, initiatives, and relevant stakeholders to increase visibility and promotion of the project, and both the innovative startups and their customers. 

How does it work?

InnoMatch will launch three types of open calls to recruit both Buyers (public and private customers of innovative solutions) and EIC beneficiaries (EIC-backed startups and scaleups). The selected pilots must be implemented in a 12-month period.

• Type 1 - open call for EIC beneficiaries and Buyers: An EIC beneficiary applies together with a Buyer, presenting an innovative solution answering the specific Buyer’s need. There are two waves of this type of open call.

• Type 2 - open call for Buyers: The Buyers apply with their unmet need. The open call is structured around the five topics of SPIN4EIC, thus aiming to leverage its efforts to support EIC beneficiaries to scale and grow their business by providing them open procurement market opportunities:

  • Agriculture, Food and Beverage
  • Construction, Infrastructure, Manufacturing
  • Digital transformation (Digital & ICT), Next Gen Computing, AI, Blockchain, Security, Firefighting & First responding
  • Energy, Environment, Sustainability, Mobility
  • Health and Life Sciences. 

  InnoMatch will help the Buyers to polish their ideas and will group the unmet needs into challenges. There is only one cohort under this type of call.

• Type 3 - open call for EIC beneficiaries: To provide a solution to the unmet needs selected in the Call for Buyers, EIC beneficiaries may propose competing solutions, with only one being awarded per challenge. 

Do you want to know more about InnoMatch? 

If you are interested in knowing more about InnoMatch, visit our website to know more about the project, upcoming open calls and more. Follow us on LinkedIn and get a first hand on all the project’s news. 

Implementing service providers

InnoMatch is the product of four experienced partners with vast expertise in the innovation procurement area: F6S (Ireland), TICBioMed (Spain), ICLEI (Germany) and Civitta (Estonia). Their joint forces will help buyers and suppliers thrive in the innovation procurement field, matchmaking both parties and tackling their unmet needs. 

Administratively speaking, this is a Coordination and Support Action (CSA), funded under the Horizon Europe Programme.