Action 4 - The legal framework of responsible and innovative procurement put into practice

The purpose of this guide - as a way to contribute to the third topic of the partnership - is to explore the practical application of the legal framework that public authorities can use to contribute to innovation and responsibility in procuring public services. The 2014 EU directives on public procurement, translated into national laws, offer various procedures of innovation procurement, that enable contracting authorities to make the necessary step forward in obtaining from the market new solutions for existing problems. These innovative procurement procedures differ from ‘traditional’ procurement instruments. The main difference is the deployment of a form of dialogue or cooperation with the market. In using innovative ways of procuring public services it is possible (or sometimes even necessary) to combine different tools, e.g. innovation partnership and functional specification (and award criteria).

This document is aimed at practitioners of public procurement, such as procurement support officers, public buyers, contract managers and legal advisors. As legal regulations and law-incorporated procurement procedures are not necessarily user-friendly and readable, especially for the non-lawyer, infographics, roadmaps and other visual material are used to make the manual easy and clear to understand, and to apply in practice.

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