The European Innovation Council (EIC) Pavilion at 4YFN during MWC24 buzzed with insightful discussions, including during the panel, “EIC Support to Innovation Procurement: Bridging and Derisking the Demand & Supply of Innovative Solutions.” This session, held on March 5th, highlighted the EIC’s Business Acceleration Service and its “Innovation Procurement Programme,” designed to foster collaboration between innovative companies and public/private sector clients.
The panel brought together a diverse group of experts, including EIC entrepreneurs and buyers of innovation. Dr. Bertrand Wert, InnoBuyer’s Project Officer, moderated the discussion, joined by Natalia Alvarez Liebana from Repsol, Elena López Ruiz from Ticbiomed, Iratxe Perales of Microfy Systems, and Javier Maté Caballero from the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
The core message of the session was clear: the EIC is actively working to simplify the path for public buyers to access cutting-edge technology. The EIC Innovation Procurement Programme acts as a bridge, derisking the process for both sides. It allows EIC companies to develop and test their solutions with potential clients, while also supporting European procurers in acquiring innovative solutions.
Folowing the Panel, Elena López Ruiz, project manager on the InnoBuyer and InnoMatch project at Ticbiomed, emphasized the importance of programs like InnoBuyer. “Projects like InnoBuyer are key for companies who want to land a strategic customer,” she stated. “Customers that are public bodies or large corporations are sometimes uncertain about investing in an innovative product. They need a safe space to test it before investing on a larger procurement strategy. Innobuyer provides that space.”
Iratxe Perales, CEO of Microfy Systems, shared a successful pilot project story, Honey.AI, financed by the InnoBuyer Open Call for EIC Solvers, with the Spanish Ministry, highlighting the practical benefits of the EIC framework. “I am satisfied to expose our ‘success story’ pilot project with the Spanish Ministry and also to count with Javier Maté’s presence in the panel, as a clear demonstration of their involvement and engagement,” Perales explained. “Innobuyer framework has been very useful to us to create a ‘temporary’ legal umbrella for this pilot with the National Reference Laboratory and really has been key to establish this cooperation. Glad to have the chance to present our technology and share our experience with others.”
This panel at MWC24 served as a crucial platform for demonstrating how the EIC, with projects like InnoBuyer, is fostering strong collaborations between innovators and buyers, driving economic growth and technological advancement.
