Boosting the transformation towards climate-neutral cities, the net-zero economy and open strategic autonomy through Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP)

Scope: By closing the gap between supply and demand in a way that reinforces EU open strategic autonomy, PCPs can make a key contribution to enhancing the European Union’s economy and competitiveness [2] . In order to master the green and digital transition and make our cities climate-neutral and liveable places, European public procurers need to lead by example by procuring more solutions to reduce greenhouse gas and air pollutants emissions. This topic therefore focuses on forward looking procurement of R&D to bring to the market new solutions to reduce greenhouse gas and air pollutants emissions that can increase Europe’s resilience and preparedness to tackle the climate challenge. Although a PCP action was already included under the Work Programme 2025 (HORIZON-MISS-2026-04-CIT-PCP-01), there is still a need for demand-driven innovation in this area. This topic supports public procurers, specifically local authorities, to collectively implement PCPs to drive innovation from the demand side and open up wider commercialisation opportunities for companies in Europe to take or maintain international leadership in new markets for net-zero technologies that can deliver solutions to reduce greenhouse gas and air pollutants emissions. The aim is to leverage PCP to encourage the development and to provide a first customer reference for the piloting, installation and validation of breakthrough innovations. Actions shall be implemented in compliance with the objectives and the sustainable and resilience public procurement obligations under the Net Zero Industry Act [3] . PCP actions target consortia of procurers with similar needs that want to procure together. This topic does not provide direct funding to developers, industry or research organisations to perform R&D. They will be able to respond to the call for tenders launched by consortia of procurers funded under this call. Specific guidance on PCP actions and minimum eligibility requirements can be found in General Annexes H of the Horizon Europe work programme. Continuous dialogue between demand and supply side is required for the success of PCPs, therefore the effective involvement of end users (e.g. cities teams that would need to adopt climate mitigation solutions, regional structures cooperating with cities on climate mitigation, citizens etc.) needs to be considered in the proposal. Furthermore, to stimulate dialogue with the supply side, public procurers are required to organise an open market consultation before launching the procurement and to promote the call for tenders widely across Europe to potentially interested suppliers. Proposals should demonstrate sustainability of the action beyond the life of the project. They should demonstrate how the project is anchored in a clear strategy to provide climate-neutral cities and enhance the economy in a sustainable way through stronger early adoption of innovative solutions to reduce greenhouse gas and air pollutants emissions. Activities covered should include cooperation with policy makers to reinforce the national policy frameworks and mobilise substantial additional national budgets for PCP and innovation procurement in general beyond the scope of the project. Involvement of procurement decision makers is needed to ensure that end solution(s) are adopted by local public buyers, increasing the societal impact of the related research activities. Therefore, procurers should declare in the proposal their interest to pursue deployment of solutions resulting from the PCP in case the PCP delivers successful solutions and indicate whether they will (1) procure successful solution(s) as part of the PCP, (2) launch a separate follow-up procurement after the PCP to buy such type of solutions, (3) adopt successful solutions without the need to procure them (e.g. in case of open source solutions), (4) foresee financial or regulatory incentives for others to adopt successful solutions (e.g. in case the final end-users of the solutions are not the procurers but for example citizens). In these four cases, the procurers can implement the project as a fast-track PCP (see general annex H). In the first case, the procurers must foresee the budget in the proposal to purchase at least one solution during the PCP. In the second case, the procurers should include in the proposal a deliverable that prepares the follow-up procurement to purchase such type of solution(s) after the PCP. In the first and third case, the procurers must foresee sufficient time during the project to deploy and validate that the solutions function well after installation. In the fourth case, the procurers can use financial support to third parties to provide financial incentives to final end-users to adopt the solutions, with a maximum budget of EUR 200 000. Projects funded under this topic, which target the higher end of the budget range, should demonstrate a greater degree of ambition in terms of innovation level and/or deployment scope. The selection of the third parties to be supported under the grant will be based on an external review by independent experts of the proposed work. Projects funded under this topic should include at least three cities of the 112 selected ones for the EU Mission on Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities [4] , and the lead procurer from the buyers group should be one of these 112 cities. In addition to the buyers’ group that will implement the PCP, projects are encouraged to actively cooperate with an additional group of follower cities in the preparation and follow up of the procurement, including possibly also in the testing of solutions, to smoothen faster uptake of solutions to the wider followers group. Collaboration amongst the projects financed under this topic and with the ‘Climate-Neutral Smart cities’ Mission Platform is essential to the increase impact and coherence of the action. Appropriate provisions for activities and resources aimed at enforcing this collaboration should be included in the work plan of the proposal. The Mission Platform will support cities with the preparatory work for the PCP. The Mission Platform will also support the upscaling and replicability of the developed solutions, and the monitoring of the impact of the projects using a common methodology and clearly established indicators. The collaboration with the Mission Platform must be formalised through a Memorandum of Understanding to be concluded as soon as possible after the project starting date. To ensure that the new solutions are appropriately identified, the projects should plan for liaising with the different other Horizon funded projects, partnerships and initiatives that promote innovation in the different domains (such as CCAM Partnership, 2ZERO Partnership, and Built4People Partnership, Circular Cities and Regions, and CIVITAS) to avoid overlaps or contradictory conclusions. This action supports the follow-up to the July 2023 Communication on EU Missions assessment [5] . [1] ‘ Open strategic autonomy’ refers to the term ‘strategic autonomy, while preserving an open economy’, as reflected in the Conclusions of the European Council of 1/2 October 2020 . [2] General Annex H to the work programme provides for specific conditions for PCP such as place of performance and commercialisation conditions that can require the majority of the procured R&D activities and later commercialisation/production of developed solutions to take place in the European Union's Member States and Associated Countries, as well as the possibility to limit the participation to the PCP procurement to economic operators that are established in the European Union's Member States and Associated Countries if there are sufficient economic operators in these territories that can develop the requested solutions. These conditions apply to this topic. [3] Regulation (EU) 2024/1735 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2024 on establishing a framework of measures for strengthening Europe’s net-zero technology manufacturing ecosystem and amending Regulation (EU) 2018/1724 Text with EEA relevance. [4] The EU Mission on Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities aims to deliver 100 climate-neutral and smart cities by 2030 and ensure that these cities act as experimentation and innovation hubs to enable all European cities to follow suit by 2050. On 28 April 2022, the Commission announced the 100 EU cities that will participate in the Mission. In addition, 12 cities have been selected from countries associated or expected to be associated the Horizon Europe programme. [5] COM(2023) 457 final and SWD(2023) 260 final

Eligibility and submission conditions

"> General conditions 1. Admissibility Conditions: Proposal page limit and layout described in Annex A and Annex E of the Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes. Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System. 2. Eligible Countries described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes. A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide . 3. Other Eligible Conditions The specific conditions for actions with PCP/PPI procurements in section H of the General Annexes apply to grants funded under this topic. described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes. 4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes. 5a. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds are described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes. 5b. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual . 5c. Evaluation and award: Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes. 6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants Grants awarded under this topic will be linked to the following action(s): HORIZON-MISS-2021-CIT-02-03 Collaboration with the Cities Mission Platform[[ Conceived through the Horizon 2020 project NetZeroCities - Accelerating cities' transition to net zero emissions by 2030, Grant Agreement n. 101036519, and scaled up through the topic HORIZON-MISS-2021-CIT-02-03: Framework Partnership Agreement (FPA) for the Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission Platform. ]] is essential and projects must ensure that appropriate provisions for activities and resources aimed at enforcing this collaboration are included in the work plan of the proposal. The collaboration with the Cities Mission Platform must be formalized through a Memorandum of Understanding to be concluded as soon as possible after the project starting date. The Cities Mission Platform should in particular support cities with the preparatory work for the PCP and facilitate the upscaling as well as the replicability of the solutions that will be developed through the PCP[[ Resources for this are foreseen under the Specific Grant Agreements to the Framework Partnership Agreement ( FPA) for the Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission Platform .]]. The beneficiaries may provide financial support to third parties to provide financial incentives to final end-users to adopt the solutions. The support to third parties can only be provided in the form of grants. The maximum amount to be granted to each third party is EUR 200 000. This amount is justified since the FSTP actions need to allow procurers to provide financial incentives to final end-users to adopt the solutions; therefore, the amount needs to be sufficient to support the deployment and maximise the impact of the project outcomes. Projects funded under this topic, which target the higher end of the budget range, should demonstrate a greater degree of ambition in terms of innovation level and/or deployment scope. PCP/PPI procurement costs are eligible. described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes. Specific conditions Not applicable. Application and evaluation forms and model grant agreement (MGA): Application form templates — the application form specific to this call is available in the Submission System Standard application form (HE PCP) Evaluation form templates — will be used with the necessary adaptations   Standard evaluation form (HE PCP PPI)   Guidance HE Programme Guide   Model Grant Agreements (MGA) HE MGA   HE Unit MGA   Call-specific instructions   Not applicable. Additional documents: HE Main Work Programme 2026-2027 – 1. General Introduction HE Main Work Programme 2026-2027 – 12. Missions HE Main Work Programme 2026-2027 – 15. General Annexes HE Programme Guide HE Framework Programme 2021/695 HE Specific Programme Decision 2021/764 EU Financial Regulation 2024/2509 Decision authorising the use of lump sum contributions under the Horizon Europe Programme Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual   Funding & Tenders Portal Terms and Conditions   Funding & Tenders Portal Privacy Statement

Hivatkozott dokumentumok

Conclusions of the European Council of 1/2 October 2020 Annex A Horizon Europe Programme Guide Online Manual Standard application form (HE PCP) Standard evaluation form (HE PCP PPI) HE MGA HE Unit MGA HE Main Work Programme 2026-2027 – 1. General Introduction HE Main Work Programme 2026-2027 – 12. Missions Decision authorising the use of lump sum contributions under the Horizon Europe Programme Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement Funding & Tenders Portal Terms and Conditions