ROHEALTH – The Health and Bioeconomy Cluster together with ADRBI – Bucharest-Ilfov Regional Development Agency – organized within the first phase of the PREPARE project a series of focus groups and workshops.
The objective was to gather information about the state of the art on innovation management at a regional level specifically by asking regional stakeholders about their perception of innovation procurement in their organizations as well as to find out possible barriers that prevent the desired use of this instrument.
At ADRBI headquarters on Strada Mihai Eminescu in Bucharest, focus groups with public and private innovation players were organized on three different days, followed by workshops with policymakers.. These meetings brought together representatives from across the spectrum of the regional innovation ecosystem in the Bucharest-Ilfov region were a fruitful moment of constructive confrontation between stakeholders in order to identify barriers and bottlenecks to innovation.
The event was attended by healthcare companies and public buyers such as hospitals, as well as regional and national authorities in the field of procurement and management of financial instruments.
The events started with the presentation of the PREPARE project and by exposing the rules of the workshops during the day.
The key insights that were obtained show that in Bucharest-Ilfov, the innovation potential is huge, but there are areas where the region is lacking. Improving the semantic interoperability of terms such as “innovation” can pave the way for a more coherent understanding and application of the legislation on innovative procurement, also known nationally as “Partenariate pentru inovare“. Also, the development of innovation management practices in public and private entities, currently absent, is a fundamental need that can stimulate this effort.
By addressing these areas, stakeholders can gain a clearer view of the different stages of innovation procurement. Last but not least, the cultural perception of innovation is a key aspect in stimulating uptake and ultimately innovation. Thus, stakeholders need to be aware that innovation is also a risk and the aprioristic fear of going down a new path than the traditional public procurement path as well as the concern about compliance scrutiny by the Court of Auditors, which may not be fully aware of this instrument, can be real barriers to innovation.
Ultimately, any regional action plan to stimulate innovative procurement must take into account cultural factors, the semantics of innovation, innovation management in organisations as well as adequate financial resources.
