Join DigitALL Public to see how the public and private sectors can work together to create a digital EU
Innovation in the public sector is naturally led by governments but also fuelled by partnerships with the private sector. We have come to know this tendency as GovTech – the ability to harness emerging technologies in the market to improve the operations of government and the delivery of public services.
From an EU perspective, GovTech is an important companion on the road to digital cross-border services. It has brought about new technologies, with huge potential to improve public services, and attracted companies from different sectors looking to contribute to the digital transformation of the EU.
But smaller companies and start-ups, in spite of their often innovative ideas, face extra challenges in this race, since larger corporations are often better equipped to get contracts with the public administration. How can governments harness the potential that that smaller market players offer in this transformation?
Widening the scope of public procurement
First, by regulating. For over a decade, EU Member States have been drafting policies and making commitments towards a more digital Europe. A large component of this EU digital transformation is interoperability across borders and policies. This is why the European Commission has been providing open technical standards and solutions to avoid vendor lock-in and make sure that any company, large or small, is equipped to develop services that will work across borders. Avoiding vendor lock-in helps ensure that no single individual company gets to reap the benefits of being the first mover.
Governments can also support smaller market players by transforming procurement. As Maximilian Strotmann from the ISA2 programme team at the EU Commission's department for informatics (DIGIT), explains, “reforming, modernising and experimenting with procurement is absolutely important. For the public sector, certainty and accountability have always been prime. But we should pay attention that we don’t find ourselves in a “straight-jacket” when we cannot embark on the type of innovation cooperation that we would like, between the best, most agile small start-ups and traditional public sector entities.”
To this end, there have been several initiatives across Europe looking to engage with small, innovative companies, in an exercise to expand the scope of public procurement. It was also the objective of the Digital Innovation Challenge, a co-creation initiative led start-ups and SMEs to understand how the Commission’s reusable solutions – like the Building Blocks – could support private sector innovation.
The importance of the European Commission’s innovation programmes
Starting in 2021, the Digital Europe Programme will continue the work CEF and ISA2 have successfully pursued so far – looking for next generation solutions and components for the public sector and collaborating with private GovTech players to develop better public services for EU citizens.
In the words of Robyn Scott, co-founder, and CEO of Apolitical, this “relationship goes both ways”, but “the public sector is critical in fostering private sector innovation: by funding early-stage R&D, by providing economic and regulatory incentives to support innovative economy and help kick-start important new markets, and by regulating monopolies that could otherwise crush small companies.”
If you would like to know more about GovTech, procurement, and public-private collaboration, join us at DigitALL Public, on April 20th, 21st, and 22nd, and look for the "How we build on the GovTech initiatives at the Member States and EU level" fireside chat.
DigitALL Public is a three-day online event that will gather some of the most innovative companies and organisations in the EU in several networking and learning activities including keynotes, interactive workshops and fireside chats. Will we see you there?
So join us at the DigitALL Public on April 20, 21, and 22,
a conference to celebrate Europe’s digital future!