GovTech4All

Throughout this last year we have told you about different govtech initiatives in Europe: Scotland, Portugal, Poland... and there are many more that we will be discussing in future articles. To name a few: Lithuania, Germany, Luxembourg...

In a continent with powerful entrepreneurship hubs (London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Barcelona, Madrid...), the appetite of European governments for govtech solutions and ecosystems to advance the digital transformation of public services is growing. So it is no surprise that the govtech agenda has also burst with force in the European Union. And we are proud that Gobe is part of it.

Last May 2023, the Govtech4All consortium was officially launched to create the first knowledge-sharing and collaboration incubator for all govtech initiatives in the European Union. The aim is to promote the development of technological solutions that respond to the challenges and needs of public administrations and the digitization of social services.

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GovTech4All es una oportunidad única para mostrar a las instituciones europeas el tremendo potencial que tienen los ecosistemas govtech: desde el impacto que puede tener el ecosistema emprendedor en la transformación digital de los servicios públicos al poder que tiene la compra pública en la competitividad de las startups y pymes digitales europeas.

En el consorcio Govtech4All participan 21 agencias gubernamentales y privadas líderes en la prestación de servicios de 14 países europeos. La iniciativa, que cuenta con financiación del Programa Europa Digital de DG Connect promovido por la Comisión Europea, es una colaboración de cuatro años para innovar la forma en que los gobiernos brindan servicios digitales a la ciudadanía. En la primera fase (2023 - 2025) se están desarrollando 3 proyectos diferentes, entre ellos el Govtech Startup Challenge, un proceso de innovación abierta govtech liderado por Gobe y en el que también participan la Agencia pública de Innovación de Lituania, Brön Innovation de Suecia, GRNET la empresa pública de tecnología en Grecia, Beta-i de Portugal y la Oficina Digital del Ayuntamiento de Madrid.

Towards a single European govtech market.

We have already complained many times that solutions from innovative startups do not reach the Public Administrations, but it is even less common for them to come from international startups. If the barriers are high for national startups, imagine for those that are from abroad, the barriers of ignorance on both sides and bureaucracy are accentuated when it comes to foreign startups.

We like challenges, so the main objective of the GovTech Startup Challenge is to create a pre-commercial space to bring innovative solutions in the field of energy efficiency from all over Europe to the Public Administrations of the different member countries. But there is more, we also seek to establish the basis for a common European-wide process of piloting and evaluating govtech solutions to help inform the future demand for technology from European Public Administrations.

To achieve this, the GovTech4All Startup Challenge will implement for the first time a common govtech open innovation process with the participation of at least five European municipalities, including Madrid. The five participating cities will define challenges in the field of energy efficiency and pilot innovative govtech startup solutions that address these challenges. Gobe is leading the design of the methodology of this process to be followed by the teams of the five cities.

The Project Competition as a formula for buying innovation

So far, the terrain is more or less known. By now you know that the way in which public procurement is implemented is the key to getting innovative solutions from startups to public authorities. Without public procurement that opens up competition, no matter how much open innovation process we do, we will not make much progress.

The main barriers faced by PPAs, also across Europe, when purchasing innovation are:

• It is not common to implement formulas that allow you to buy when you do not know the solution or technical specifications. And it is normal not to know them, technological innovation advances so fast that it is difficult to keep up to date with the latest functionalities and technologies.
• Price continues to prevail as an objective criterion, which prevents us from buying based on quality.
• It is rare to find contracts that allow piloting, i.e. experimenting with the solution, and then scaling up with the same supplier.

Therefore, the second objective of the GovTech Startup Challenge is to apply the contractual figure of the Project Competition (also known as Art. 183 of the LCSP in Spain) or Design Contest in English, to pilot and scale the best solutions presented in response to the challenges posed by the five cities.

We have already told you here and here what Art. 183 consists of and how to open competition in public tenders, so we will only emphasize that this figure allows us to buy innovation when we do not know the solution and to pilot and scale with the company that wins the competition.

It is not being easy, since we are immersed in aligning five municipal institutions to implement for the first time this figure for the purchase of innovation. Although the figure of the Project Competition is in the European legislation, each country has its own rules and particularities, so it is more than likely that we will find variations in the application of this figure between the different administrations. This will give us the opportunity to analyze different use cases and learn what works best, with the aim of inspiring other administrations across Europe to implement the Project Competition in the processes of technology and innovation procurement.

If you are interested in following this project closely, follow Govtech4All's LinkedIn page and Gobe - studio govtech. If you want to know more about the project, please contact us at hello@gobe.studio.