Power of the Purse: Can Europe use procurement power to stimulate innovation?

As part of its Innovation Union strategy, the European Commission has set a target of there being at least €10 billion allocated around the EU for government agencies to buy innovative products and services. The idea: To harness the purchasing power of the public sector towards stimulating more innovation – the way the US government has done with its DARPA and SBIR programme.

Many EU members have already started down this road. But how will it work on a larger scale? How should standard procedures for so-called ‘pre-commercial procurement’ be modified to encourage it?