PROTECT

PROTECT aims at levering innovation procurement to unlock the climate service (CS) market’s potential to support urgent climate adaptation and mitigation. The project will allow public and private organisations to build up and integrate their knowledge and skills about climate change, environmental observation (EO) and innovation procurement, notably enabling public authorities to shift to a proactive governance model, using innovative public procurement approaches to increase value and climate impact for money. It shall increase access of CS SME providers across Europe to public procurement markets and shape solutions that best address public demand, both specific and systemic. The initial focus will be on five encompassing application domains (Utilities, Green cities, Health, Land use & Marine environment, Security) and their contributions to the areas of sustainability in Horizon Europe’s Cluster 6. The project will source and assess existing and high-potential CS solutions and technologies that use EO data. It will engage with an extensive and varied community of procurers, inform the definition and aggregation of their needs and functional requirements for CS, explaining, fostering and supporting a ‘buying with impact’ approach. Clearer, less fragmented demand shall guide and support R&D for future CS. PROTECT will prepare the operational ground for one or more joint, cross-border or coordinated pre-commercial procurement (PCP) processes and identify short-term actions so that Public Procurement of Innovative Solutions (PPI) can be activated towards or right after the project’s end. At policy level, it will provide decision-makers for procurement, climate and policy, at EU, national, regional and local levels, with practical recommendations and guidelines to boost the use of innovation procurement for climate action.