PROTECT

The new EU project PROTECT aims at levering innovation procurement to boost the performance of the Climate Services market to support urgent action for climate adaptation, mitigation and resilience. The project will allow public and private entities to build up and integrate their knowledge and skills in the areas of climate crisis, Earth-Observation data and innovation procurement, enabling public authorities in particular to shift to a proactive and innovative governance model, using state-of-the-art public procurement approaches to increase value for money and climate impact. It shall seek to unlock the access of SME providers across Europe to the markets and shape solutions that best fit the specific and systemic needs of public demand. The initial focus will be on five encompassing application domains: Utilities, Green communities, Circular and bio economy, Land use and Marine environment, Civil Security and Protection.

The project will source and assess existing and high-potential Climate Service solutions and technologies that use Earth-Obersvation data, especially space-based. It will engage with an extensive and varied community of procurers, capture the definition and aggregation of their needs and functional requirements for Climate Services, with the goal to explain, foster and support a ‘buying with impact’ approach and help them comply with climate regulations. Clearer, less fragmented public demand shall then guide and support R&D for future Climate Services actions.

PROTECT will thus prepare the operational ground for one or more joint, cross-border or coordinated Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) processes and identify immediate short-term actions so that Public Procurement of Innovative Solutions (PPI) can be activated during the project or immediately after it ends. At the policy level, the project will provide decision-makers for procurement, climate, technology development and policy, at EU, national, regional, and local levels, with practical recommendations and guidelines to enable and encourage much stronger use of IP for climate action. As part of the consortium, Climate Alliance is responsible for the communication and dissemination of the results as well as the assessment of local needs.

Project funding period: June 2022 – May 2024
via the Horizon Europe Framework Programme (HORIZON) under grant agreement No 101060592

Want to learn more? Please contact Andreas Kress at a.kress(at)climatealliance.org.

www.protect-pcp.eu
 

Further information

• PROTECT Leaflet (pdf)
• Newsletter: February 2023 | July 2023 | December 2023
• Policy Brief: Leveraging Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) for Sustainable Climate Action Plans (SECAPs)