Abstract

An innovation partnership is a new procurement procedure provided for in the recently adopted public procurement directives. Following its implementation to national procurement, the procedure is to be available to the contracting entities in procurement procedures concerning specific subject matters. On the one hand, innovation partnerships are expected to provide the contracting entities and contractors with space and flexibility needed to elaborate new innovative solutions not yet existing on the market. On the other, such partnerships still need to follow the strict rules of the administrative procedure in the framework of which significant public funds are to be spent. The article expounds the innovation partnership procedure in the following steps: (i) having referred to the background conditions for introducing innovation partnerships to the European legislation, (ii) it analyses legal aspects of the procedure established under the directives, at the same time indicating the challenges in the conduct of the procedure, (iii) and finally concludes by indicating certain issues for further analysis.