The municipality of Gävle is developing a pilot project to build a procurement tool for innovation procurement. The pilot project is building a general model applicable for innovation procurement in general. This is done by addressing a specific case: the meal situation for the elderly in the publicly financed Swedish elderly care system. When a societal need or challenge is identified, this procurement tool, which is currently under development, can be used to identify, define, describe and communicate needs and challenges, making it possible to procure unknown solutions for the need or challenge.
The innovation procurement model is not a model to be used every day or regularly; it’s a model to be utilized perhaps every three to five years for larger challenges and innovation steps.
The model will most probably be used in cooperation with several regions and municipalities – possibly in Sweden and Europe – facing common challenges. Procurement projects can be ‘team efforts’ where risks are shared and resources joined together.
The stakeholders involved in this pilot are several different Swedish municipalities, a Swedish region, a regional procurement agency and the national innovation agency. It’s clear that political support from both leading politicians and officials is needed.