75% of EU citizens live in urban areas and they face increasing security challenges. Moreover, we still don’t have sufficient technological solutions. Is there any chance to change that?
Law enforcement and security agencies are well aware of their needs. They analyse the market to find tools to address all issues related to maintaining public spaces safe and free from dangerous situations. In a perfect world, this would work, and every problem could be mitigated by the appropriate solution. Unfortunately, the reality is quite different.
Well-Suited Technologies Are Needed
Despite living in times of constant technological development, new risks evolve quicker than solutions progress. It may be surprising, but having the technical capabilities to tackle a threat and having a solution that works in a specific environment, integrating with other systems, are two entirely different things.
Your place of residence can only be safer if innovative and well-suited solutions are in place. Unfortunately, public buyers often report that they tried to find relevant technologies but often do not succeed as they are not able to match their needs and requirements.
We can imagine they wish for a company to develop a product that finally meets their expectations. They might also ask if such a model can work and be realistic. Naturally, suppliers aim to sell products and benefit from them rather than investing much time in customising a tool, especially when operating in a niche market. Still, even with cooperation, the lack of financial resources, time, and testing phases can be problematic.
Idea for Developing Tools Addressing Your Needs
Considering the above, the European Commission started supporting a Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) approach to address the challenge of procuring innovative technologies suited to specific security needs.
Dr. Beatriz Gómez Fariñas
Senior Legal Procurement Consultant
Corvers Commercial & Legal Affairs
“PCP is a tool for contracting authorities to acquire Research and Development (R&D) services (and under certain conditions, related R&D results) from several competing technology providers in parallel, to compare alternative solution approaches, and to identify the best value-for-money solutions that the market can deliver to address their needs,” explained Dr. Beatriz Gómez Fariñas, Senior Legal Procurement Consultant at Corvers Commercial & Legal Affairs.
“In PCP, there is a risk-benefit sharing under market conditions between the public procurer and the technology providers, and a clear separation between the PCP and the deployment of commercial volumes of end-products”, she added.
PCP is, first and foremost, a demand-driven approach. This is a strong asset for public buyers as it equates to efficiency and effectiveness for all stakeholders – from public administrations at national and regional levels to enterprises and citizens. It helps the public sector makes the most of public investment while guaranteeing maximum benefits for all involved.
Usually, the PCP procedure is composed of three phases:
- Phase 1: Solution design.
- Phase 2: Prototype implementation.
- Phase 3: Validation and demonstration of the solutions.
Benefits for All Involved Parties
Before starting the actual PCP process, there is the Curiosity Driven Research phase. During this stage, relevant stakeholders identify the main challenges and problems that can be solved by new solutions, check the market landscape to evaluate the feasibility and the technology readiness level of the solutions available in the market, engage with technology providers, and analyse the costs and benefits of conducting the PCP.
After these preparatory steps, the PCP is launched with the publication of a contract notice in the Tenders Electronic Daily (TED). Companies, acting alone or as part of a consortium, can submit their bids within the deadline established in the tender documents. The winners will be awarded a framework agreement, which covers the whole PCP process, and a contract for phase 1.
This is a competitive process. After each phase, intermediate evaluations will be carried out to progressively select the best of the competing solutions. The contractors who successfully complete a certain phase will be invited to submit a bid for the next phase.
PCP brings a wide range of benefits to the different parties involved in the procurement: public buyers, technology providers, and the society. PCP enables public buyers to provide early customer feedback and steer the development of solutions to meet their needs. This leads to higher quality or efficiency solutions compared to expensive, catalogue products which often fail to meet their real needs. It also helps to achieve the desired degree of interoperability from the beginning and reduce the risk of vendor lock-in. By participating in the Pre-Commercial Procurement, suppliers can accelerate the process of bringing scientific results to market. Finally, society stands to benefit when taxpayers' money is used to purchase innovative products that enhance the quality and efficiency of life protection.
Once the PCP is completed, the public buyers may initiate a Public Procurement of Innovative Solutions (PPI) to purchase the solutions based on the R&D results which have been brought to the market. Follow-up PPI procurements for a commercial volume of the innovative solutions developed in this PCP procurement will be subject to a new call for tenders.
How It Works in Practice?
As mentioned earlier, the European Commission supports the PCP instrument. Many R&D projects funded by the European Union rely on this approach. One of the main benefits is that, due to EU funding, some financial costs that would normally be covered by Public Buyers are removed for both them and the suppliers involved. One of those EU initiatives is SHIELD4CROWD, designed to improve crowd management in crisis situations, enhancing the safety and resilience of public spaces. The project team aims to support relevant stakeholders in obtaining innovative security technologies suited to their needs. The Polish Platform for Homeland Security is a partner in this initiative. We are mainly responsible for setting up the User Observatory and Public Buyers Groups, as well as managing communication and dissemination activities.
SHIELD4CROWD is aimed to lay the groundwork for further Pre-Commercial Procurement, under which innovative solutions to tackle major security issues will be developed. Before moving to the PCP phase, it was essential to conduct Curiosity Driven Research to prepare the actual procurement. The team made an effort to define the technology use case and related security challenges, which will serve as a reference point for potential PCP activities.
The SHIELD4CROWD final use case was defined as the “Terrorist Attack and Disinformation at a Transportation Hub.” Additionally, there are two potential challenges for follow-up PCPs:
- Development of a technology to without disrupting the crowd flow in public spaces such as public transport environment.
- Development of a technology to ensure strong coordination and cooperation between all the stakeholders (mainly law enforcement agencies): digital twins, hypervision, real-time event mapping, communication, social media screening, crowd simulation, etc.
Armand Raudin
SHIELD4CROWD Project Coordinator
SNCF Group
“The SHIELD4CROWD project is successful, and enabled the possibility for European security forces to share their processes and needs and converge towards one common security use case and two challenges to address through PCP projects. Indeed, the project gathered not only 10 partners but also 14 end-users in the User Observatory Group who contributed actively and can now join the potential Public Buyers Group for the PCP,” said Armand Raudin from SNCF, who is the Project Coordinator.
Join the Upcoming PCP Projects!
The SHIELD4CROWD team provides you with the opportunity to play a crucial role in procuring R&D services and contributing to the development of the above-mentioned PCP project following SHIELD4CROWD actions. If you are a security operator or a representative of a security force interested in these solutions, you can join the Public Buyers Group (PBG) by contacting the project representative at: nina.czyzewska@ppbw.pl.
This article was prepared as part of the SHIELD4CROWD EU-funded project. More information about this initiative and the Pre-Commercial Procurement can be found on the website: https://shield4crowd.eu/.