The PROGR-East consortium has prepared a first draft version of a “A practical guide to Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) implementation for Progr-East pilots” now available on the Progr-East website (http://www.progreast.eu/documents/project-deliverables)

The scope of this practical manual is to introduce innovative procurement strategies (in particular Pre-Commercial Procurement) to public authorities and stakeholders in Eastern European countries, illustrating and transferring interesting experiences implemented in other countries.

The PCP Manual is mainly targeted at policy makers and public procurers looking for practical guidelines before setting up a PCP process in their respective countries. With this Manual, the procurer will be “accompanied” throughout the PCP process and provided with suggested solutions, practical examples, templates and useful documentation/material in order to render the process as simple as possible and to reduce (or eliminate) the perceived risks and uncertainty regarding the design and the practical implementation of a PCP process.

The elaboration of the Manual has been supported by a preparatory background analysis of frameworks, schemes and practices in Europe and in the US, conducted by the Progr-EAST promoters to better understand the innovative public procurement context, the state-of-the-art and the on-going practices.

Taking into consideration the EC recommendations on PCP, the recent developments in this area, the outcomes of the background analysis and counting on the advice of experts in the field, Progr-EAST has developed a “PCP process flow”, structured in phases and steps, with the intention of simplifying the PCP concept and providing a practical and achievable understanding of the PCP process.