EIC Innovation Procurement Programme

The European Innovation Council (EIC) stimulates strong collaboration between EIC top-notch innovators and public or private buyers, investors, technology giants and industrial leaders to spur new partnerships, and to modernize 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 these innovative SMEs and start-ups and contributing, at the same time, to their scaling up. 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: 

Targeting at the strengthening of the demand with the supply side, this EIC programme contains a variety of services tailored to the needs of each respective stakeholder:

• SPIN4EIC Strategic Innovation Procurement Programme 
• InnoBuyer: Fast Track to Innovation Procurement 
• 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: 

SPIN4EIC is an innovative and unique flagship initiative from the EIC dedicated to delivering valuable support services to EIC innovators. Its purpose is to enhance their ability to access procurement markets both in Europe and worldwide. The program is committed to promoting the entry of outstanding EIC innovators into procurement markets, generating broader prospects for inventive SMEs and startups. Simultaneously, it aims to facilitate their expansion in the market environment and to create matching opportunities with procurers. 

SPIN4EIC also extends its dedication specifically to public buyers, to elevate their procurement game with unparalleled support services tailored for innovation. 

Visit our main page

What does this flagship initiative offer?

• A Community of public and private buyers interested in the solutions offered by the EIC Beneficiaries; 
• 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 Beneficiaries to submit tenders in public and private sector procurement opportunities in Europe and at a global level; 
• Enhance the capacity of the 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. 

EIC Beneficiaries will have the opportunity to expand their business prospects by connecting with their demand side for increased opportunities and receive expert assistance in tender submissions for Innovation Procurement on a European and a global scale.

On the other side, Public and Private Buyers will have the opportunity to gain valuable support for procuring cutting-edge innovations from EIC Beneficiaries

Furthermore, SPIN4EIC provides for an Assistance Programme dedicated to Public Buyers in the EU MS and Horizon Europe Associated Countries, contributing to the enhancement of their capacity to purchase innovative solutions, and fostering innovation in Europe. 

How is it implemented?

SPIN4EIC provides many different activities, which range from assistance to EIC beneficiaries and Public Procurers to events and dedicated toolkits. Here you can find an overview of the activities projected to foster the procurement of innovation in Europe and beyond: 

• Tailored assistance to EIC beneficiaries to take part as bidders in Public, including procurement of Research and Development (R&D) services, and Private sector Innovation Procurement tender processes, in and outside Europe. This is a free service for EIC beneficiaries. An Ongoing call will be open until August 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, and fostering innovation in Europe.  Public buyers will have indeed the opportunity to receive assistance for designing and implementing their innovation procurement projects through an ongoing call. 
• 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 BAS Innovation Procurement Community, powered by SPIN4EIC 

SPIN4EIC provides EIC Beneficiaries and Buyers with a Community to share experience, best practices and contact. This Community is structured into 2 restricted groups dedicated to the Buyers, to exchange ideas and engage with peers: 

• SPIN4EIC Public Buyers Community Group
• SPIN4EIC Private Buyers Community Group

This Community also includes 5 thematic groups dedicated to the EIC Beneficiaries (accessible also to procurers and other users) interested in the topic included in the project: 

• 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

All the 7 groups are accessible in the Group area of the EIC Community platform. To join the restricted groups dedicated to buyers it is necessary to register on the EIC Community Platform and to ask for admission. 

Interested to elevate and connect through  SPIN4EIC ?

 If you want to join the SPIN4EIC Community and to be updated about assistances and opportunities, you will find all the information on how to subscribe on our dedicated page. 

During the subscription, don’t forget to highlight all the topics of your interest. This will allow us to send you all the relevant information and updates about the upcoming calls and events. 

Connect with us

Implementing partners 

InnoBuyer is a coordination and support action funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme. With a total budget of 2 million euros, it aims to become a testing ground and benchmark towards the implementation of a demand-driven methodology that brings together Challengers (public and private organisations) and Solvers (notably European Innovation Council-supported SMEs), to jointly co-create innovative solutions, and speed-up the process leading to a concrete innovation procurement.

Project Goals

• Foster the development of an ecosystem to promote collaborative innovation between the best European public Challenge Owners and Solvers (in particular, EIC-supported companies);
• Launch and validate a support programme to co-create innovation between Challengers and Solvers. The programme will be demand-driven and geared to adoption by design;
• Demonstrate the increase of efficiency of EU public (but also private) services via piloting 15 innovative solutions, notably the ones from the EIC-funded companies.

How does it work?

1. Recruitment and aggregation of Challengers: A total of 15  public organisations (Challengers) with unmet Innovation Needs have been invited to join the InnoBuyer programme, along with 1 additional organisation from the reserve list who accepted to join the programme on a voluntary basis.
2. Buyer-SME matching: The selected Challengers are supported on the launch of an Open Market Consultation to receive feedback on their challenges, and recruit and award Solvers (SME and start-ups) to answer the proposed challenges.
3. Pilot co-creation: Challengers and Solvers will jointly co-create solutions to the challenges. The solutions will be tested and evaluated. Solvers will receive support towards the future commercialization of their solutions.
4. Terms of Reference delivery: Support the creation of ToRs in collaboration with external experts, as the base for a future tender for the solution by the Challengers.

About InnoBuyer partners 

InnoBuyer is operated by three partners with complementary expertise, forming the core of a vibrant ecosystem: F6S (Ireland), Civitta (Estonia) and TICBioMed (Spain). Together, they are committed to driving innovation and fostering collaboration between public and private entities for the benefit of society.

Interested in the InnoBuyer Project?

Visit the official website to learn more about the Project, the Open Call for EIC Solvers and how you can be a part of this groundbreaking initiative. Follow us on LinkedIn, and get a first hand on all the project’s news. 

Connect with us

Implementing partners 

InnoMatch is a new action of the EIC Innovation Procurement Programme, running until September 2027. It is working in very close collaboration with ongoing projects under this programme, namely InnoBuyer and Spin4EIC.

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 partners

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.

If you have any questions, please contact us through the EIC Community’s contact page  by choosing the category ‘SPIN4EIC Powered by EIC BAS Innovation Procurement Programme' for more information related to SPIN4EIC, or filling in the subject 'InnoBuyer' or 'InnoMatch' for more information on the related programmes.