HORIZON 2020 – WORK PROGRAMME 2018-2020
General Annexes
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A. Preparation stage
The expected outcomes at this stage of a project that prepares a PCP procurement: (1)
Completed tender documents based on the Horizon 2020 PCP model contract documents,
needs analysis of the end-users, prior art analysis, and open market consultation; and for PCPs
executed by a group of procurers, (2) Signed joint procurement agreement confirming the
final collaboration modus including the financial commitment of the buyers group to pool
resources for the PCP; and (3) Final confirmation of the lead procurer.
B. Execution stage
Main activities for a project that executes a PCP are the implementation of the PCP
procurement and of the PCP contracts, including validation and comparison of the
performance of the competing PCP solutions to verify fitness for purpose for conversion into
permanent service of the solutions. The PCP must be executed either by (a) public procurer(s)
possibly in cooperation with private/NGO procurers that provide services of public interest
and share the same procurement need, that is (are) responsible for the acquisition and/or
regulatory strategy for the targeted innovative solutions and aim to obtain ambitious quality
and efficiency improvements in the area of public interest addressed by the PCP, or must be
entities with a mandate from one or more of such procurers to act on their behalf in the
procurement (e.g. central purchasing bodies).
Other entities (e.g. end-users, certification bodies) whose participation is well justified may
participate during A and B in additional activities that clearly add value to the action and
support the preparation and execution of the PCP or embed the PCP into a wider set of
demand side activities. This includes dissemination of results, removing obstacles for
introducing the solutions in the market (e.g. contribution to standardisation, regulation,
certification), awareness-raising, experience sharing/training, preparing further cooperation
among stakeholders and procurers in future PCPs or PPIs.
Preparation and publication of the open market consultation and call for tender
In preparation of the PCP call for tender, an open dialogue
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with potential tenderers and
end-users must be held to broach the views of the market about the intended R&D scope.
The results of this open market consultation must be duly taken into account to fine-tune
the tender specifications, so that the gap between state-of-the art industry development and
the procurement needs justifies the need to procure R&D
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services.
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The open dialogue should be organised in a way not to preclude or distort competition. In respect of the
Treaty principles, the open dialogue must be announced well in advance and widely via a prior information
notice (PIN) in the Official Journal of the EU (OJEU) and enable potential tenderers regardless of the
geographic location to participate at least in English. All information given in answers to questions from
participants in the dialogue should be documented and published.
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In line with WTO GPA 1994 Article XV (1)(e) and the revised WTO GPA 2014 Article XIII(1)(f), R&D
can cover activities such as solution exploration and design, prototyping, up to the original development of a
limited volume of first products or services in the form of a test series. Original development of a first
product or service may include limited production or supply in order to incorporate the results of field
testing and to demonstrate that the product or service is suitable for production or supply in quantity to
acceptable quality standards. R&D does not include quantity production or supply to establish commercial
viability or to recover R&D costs, nor commercial development activities such as incremental adaptations or
HORIZON 2020 – WORK PROGRAMME 2018-2020
General Annexes
Part 19 - Page 21 of 37
In respect of the Treaty principles, the PCP contract notice must be published EU wide
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by a public procurer in at least English, offers must be accepted and communication with
stakeholders must be enabled at all stages throughout the PCP in at least English, and all
offers must be evaluated according to the same objective criteria regardless of the
geographic location, organisation size or governance structure of the tenderers.
The prior information notice for the open market consultation and the PCP contract notice
must be promoted and advertised widely using in particular also Horizon 2020 Internet
sites and National Contact Points. The Commission must be informed at least 5 days prior
to the expected date of publication of the PIN for the open market consultation and 30 days
prior to the expected date of publication of the PCP contract notice and its content. The
PCP call for tender must remain open for the submission of tenders for at least 60 days.
Tender documentation and procurement procedure
The PCP contract notice must contain information on the intended number of R&D
providers that will be selected (minimum three) to start the PCP, the number of PCP phases
and the expected duration and budget for each PCP phase. The PCP procurement must
cover the full PCP life cycle of solution design, prototyping, and original development
including testing of a limited volume of test series products/services. Each of the three PCP
phases can be split up into further phases if appropriate.
Procurers should avoid the use of selection criteria based on disproportionate qualification
and financial guarantee requirements (e.g. with regards to prior customer references and
minimum turnover). Functional/performance based specifications must be used, to
formulate the object of the PCP tender as a problem to be solved, without prescribing a
specific solution approach to be followed. Evaluation of the tenders must be based on best
value for money criteria, not just lowest price.
The PCP process must be organised while taking care to avoid any conflict of interests,
including in the use of external experts. Potential providers of solutions sought for by a
PCP cannot be beneficiaries in an action during which this PCP is planned or undertaken.
The PCP process must require selected R&D providers to locate the majority of the R&D
activities for the PCP contract, including in particular the principal researcher(s) working
for the PCP contract, in the Member States or Associated Countries.
In PCP, procurers do not reserve the R&D results exclusively for their own use. An R&D
provider generating results in PCP must own the attached IPRs
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. The procurers must enjoy
royalty-free access rights to use the R&D results for their own use. The procurers must also
enjoy the right to grant or to require participating R&D providers to grant non-exclusive
licenses to third parties to exploit the results under fair and reasonable market conditions
without any right to sublicense. A call-back provision must ensure that if an R&D provider
fails to commercially exploit the results within a given period after the PCP as identified in
the contract or uses the results to the detriment of the public interest, including security
interests, it must transfer any ownership of results to the procurers. The procurers must
routine or periodic changes to existing products, services, production lines, processes or other operations in
progress, even if such changes may represent improvements.
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Through the OJEU, using the TED (Tenders Electronic Daily) web Portal