Innovative Advanced Materials Innovation Procurement (CSA)

Expected Outcome:

• Leverage innovation procurement processes to stimulate innovation in advanced materials addressing specific needs or challenges faced by public procurers.
• Drive market transformation by aligning public procurement strategies with broader policy objectives, such as the twin transition.
• Establish market dialogue between the public demand side and the supply side, industry, and research organisations, reducing the gap between innovation procurement strategies and innovative solution development roadmaps on both sides.
• Develop proposals for amending Commission guidelines and sharing best practice on innovation procurement targeting resource and energy efficiency gains due to innovative technologies related to advanced materials.
• Identify standardisation needs for procurers in line with the Commission communication on Advanced Materials for Industry Leadership.

Scope:

The use of advanced materials^[1] has the potential to reinforce the Union’s resilience and competitiveness as well as achieving circularity, materials efficiency and overall sustainability targets. Public procurers can play a leading role in driving innovation and fostering the uptake of advanced materials, thereby speeding up the market introduction of technologies that enable the twin transition and EU’s resilience and economic security. Advanced materials drive innovations in new clean energy technologies provided for in the Net-Zero Industry Act and have the potential to substitute certain Critical Raw Materials (CRMs), thus contributing to the objectives of the CRM Act. Advanced materials can also replace hazardous substances, improve the environmental performance of products and processes, and facilitate circularity.

Public Procurements that make better use of advanced materials can potentially achieve a substantial impact towards these policy objectives in all areas where the public sector is an important customer such as construction, mobility, electronics and energy. Examples of functionalities that could potentially be realised through advanced materials include thermal isolation and protective coatings in construction, superior reliability and durability of energy and mobility infrastructures, improved performance of electronic devices, increased circularity and cost-efficient maintenance of products.

Mandatory requirements in public procurement procedures, relating to for example energy efficiency performance or environmental sustainability, are foreseen in the Energy Efficiency Directive^[2], the Net Zero Industry Act^[3] and the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation^[4]. More generally, the EU Public Procurement Directives allow contracts to be awarded not only based on lowest price, but also on other criteria linked to the subject matter of the contract, such as improved performance/functionalities provided by advanced materials. Furthermore, the Competitiveness Compass for the EU^[5] foresees the introduction of a European preference in public procurement for strategic sectors and technologies, reinforcing technological security and domestic supply chains, as well as simplifying and modernising rules, in particular for start-ups and innovative companies.

The objective of this coordination and support action (CSA) is to create a Europe-wide consortium of public procurers that define together unmet procurement needs for innovative solutions based on advanced materials.

The consortium should prepare future procurement topics to conduct Pre-Commercial Procurements (PCP)/Public Procurements of Innovative Solutions (PPI) that make use of advanced materials with novel functionalities for sectors where public procurers and key customers, in particular aligned with objectives pertinent to advanced materials.

Proposal objectives should reflect making best use in public procurements of innovative material properties that contribute to superior product performance (including the impact on e.g. production, maintenance or recyclability) and/or contribute to policy objectives such as those formulated in the Green Deal, the Net-Zero Industry Act, the Critical Raw Materials Act and the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation while having the potential to be exploited as widely as possible.

Activities supported by this CSA should include the following aspects:

• open market consultation with the industry;
• market analysis and analysis of potential barriers (status of market developments regarding advanced materials versus the procurement needs, standardisation, certification, regulatory requirements, intellectual property rights, contracting models, payment schemes, etc.);
• consultations with other public buyers and relevant stakeholders such as end-users to prepare for a future market uptake of the solutions and effective use of innovation procurement (PCP/PPI).

[1] Advanced Materials for Industrial Leadership, COM(2024)98 final

[2] Energy Efficiency Directive

[3] Regulation 2024/1735

[4] Regulation 2024/1781

[5] COM(2025)30 final