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

Expected Outcome:
Projects are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:

• Public procurers stimulate from demand side the competitive development of market ready innovative solutions to reduce greenhouse gas and air pollutants emissions that can contribute to the transition of local communities towards climate neutrality, whilst strengthening EU open strategic autonomy [1] ;

• Public procurers leverage PCP to bring to the market innovative solutions in sectors relevant for climate change mitigation (such as energy efficiency in buildings, production and use of renewable energy, sustainable and smart mobility, digitalisation etc.) and implement those innovative solutions in the participant cities to reduce greenhouse gas and air pollutants emissions;

• Public procurers drive innovation and increase resilience in the supply chain by opening up opportunities for innovative companies established in the European Union's Member States and Horizon Europe Associated Countries, in particular SMEs and Startups, to access the public procurement market and scale up their business;

• Increased opportunities for wide market uptake and economies of scale for the supply side through increased demand for innovative solutions to reduce greenhouse gas and air pollutants emissions at the local level, wide publication of results and where relevant contribution to standardisation, regulation or certification;

• Present the expected greenhouse gas emission reduction in the participating cities by 2030 and 2050, in comparison to a baseline established at the beginning of the project.
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…