Innovative
Public procurement

You want to renew your services and develop your acquisition competence

• Your organization has motivation and the opportunity to develop and renew services and operations.
• Your organization has the ability and resources to make an innovative procurement, as well as the willingness and strategy to commit to the renewal of procurement.

The procurement has a market opening and sector building effect

• Your procurement will affect the development of the industry at least nationally.
• Innovative procurement involves close cooperation with suppliers and end-users.
• The procurement need cannot be met by the alternatives available on the market.

You can use the Innovative Public Procurement funding for procurements that strive to reform your operations and services. Funding is not limited to a specific procurement procedure.

Funding can be used for preparation, tendering, co-development and pilot phase of the procurement. At least 80 % of the project costs must consist of research and development. R&D work of the project will be evaluated project-by-project. 

Ensure the impact of the procurement

• Promoting innovation in public procurement requires that the procurements are defined in cooperation with providers and end-users to create a market need to develop new solutions. This can mean challenging goals or restricting procurement in a new way.
• Innovative public procurement must have a market-opening effect.

Read more about the funding terms and conditions

The funding terms and conditions describe the costs that Business Finland can fund, how we monitor your project costs, and how you should report on the progress of your project.

Funding terms and conditions

Learn more about Finland's Sustainable Growth Program's funding calls

The funding calls are part of the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), which promotes structural renewal in business and industry and a competitive edge based on Finnish companies' sustainable solutions. Some of the calls include funding for innovative public procurement.

Explore the funding calls

Send your application and attachments via our online service. You can also keep track of the processing of your application in the online service.

Go to the online service

Set goals for your project

In the application form, you will be asked to set 2–5 concrete and partly measurable goals for your project. The goals must relate to the concrete results of the project, the goals of the project are written in the financing decision and their implementation is monitored.

Examples of project goals:

• market dialogs that have taken place
• pilot realization
• development of the organization's procurement competence
• strengthening of innovative procurement management/operating model creation
• opening up new markets
• completion of product/service characteristics
• strengthening of your partner network
• productivity growth

APPENDIX 1: Project plan

Attach the project plan as part of the application. The plan can be either entered directly in the application form fields or attached to the application as a separate file.

We would like you to describe at least the following in the project plan:

• Background and goal of the project
• Project implementation, resources and schedule
  • What will be done?
  • Who will carry out the work?
  • Schedule
• Impact of the procurement on the market and the implementing supplier
• Next steps: what will be done after the completion of the project, how will your organization exploit the project results?

Eligible costs

Business Finland can accept costs starting from the date the application was submitted, at the earliest.

Eligible costs are research, development and innovation expenditure which:

• have arisen from the project during the duration of the project (accrual basis)
• have been entered in the beneficiary's accounts
• are net amounts.

Salaries and wages
The recipient of the funding may account for salaries and wages paid to a person on the basis of time monitoring from the salary allocated to the project.

Indirect personnel costs
A percentage of the salaries paid for effective working hours that have been approved for the project and laid out in the project cost estimate (max. 50%) can be accepted as indirect personnel costs.

Overheads
The funder can accept up to 20% of the project's total salary and personnel costs as overheads.

Travel expenses
Travel expenses must be in accordance with the project plan and the related working time must be recorded in the project's time monitoring.

Costs of materials and supplies
Materials and supplies purchased from externally can be accepted as invoiced; internal ones at cost price.

Equipment purchases
The cost of the equipment purchased for the project can be accepted as a direct cost of the project when it is mainly used by the project and the cost of the equipment can be recorded as expenses for the current accounting period according to the Accounting Act.

Depreciation and lease of equipment
If, according to the plan, the cost of machinery and equipment is capitalized and recognized as depreciation during its useful life, depreciation for the duration of the project is accepted.

Purchased services
In accordance with the project plan and invoicing, the costs of contract-based research, competence and patents, consultancy and similar services purchased from external sources on market terms or acquired under license may be accepted, when used exclusively for the project.

The following costs cannot be accepted as project costs

• entertainment expenses, donations, stipends, or grants
• costs of commercial activities
• costs related to production, advertising, marketing or sales
• financing expenses
• the beneficiary's financial contributions to the project implemented in the research organization
• costs subject to public aid that prohibits other public aid in its terms and conditions
• wage costs for which wage subsidies have been received
• financial, administrative, insurance, repair, maintenance or similar expenditure in respect of purchases made under an installment purchase transaction
• expenses (administrative, financial, insurance, repair, etc.) related to equipment leasing, in so far as they exceed the leasing costs corresponding to the purchase price of the relevant acquisition for the duration of the project
• procurement which has not been carried out in accordance with the section procurement procedures
• costs not included in the project plan