Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) concerns the phase before commercial exploitation, namely the procurement of R&D. PCP is used to drive technological innovation up to the development of a limited batch of first products or services in the form of a test series. The subsequent commercialisation of the results of the PCP generated by the R&D providers in the PCP is up to the R&D providers themselves (for an unlimited period of time if compliant with the PCP conditions or until the call-back clause is called for). Commercial exploitation of the PCP results by R&D providers that participate in the PCP can be defined as marketing a commercial application of the results directly by the R&D provider or by any of its potential subcontractors or licensees. This can include marketing a commercial application (through direct sales or licensing or transfer of ownership) of all types of results from the PCP (including information, data, IPRs, products/services/processes resulting from the PCP).
Commercialisation of products/services resulting from the PCP covers the production, distribution, marketing, sales and customer support required to achieve commercial success. As a strategy, commercialisation of products/services requires developing a marketing plan, determining how the product or service will be supplied to the market and anticipating and managing barriers to success.
The public procurer may support the commercialisation process by launching a PPI procurement after the PCP to purchase the results of the PCP, in particular to deploy products/services resulting from the PCP. If the PPI covers only the purchase of the limited set of prototypes or first test products/services developed during the PCP, then the PPI procurement can be limited to the R&D providers that participate in the PCP on condition that the PCP procurement was open not only to bidders from the 28 Member States, EEA and countries in the EU Neighbourhood policy but also to all bidders from WTO signatory countries. According to the EU and WTO legal framework, a PPI procurement to buy commercial volumes of final end-products may not be reserved to (one of) the R&D providers that participated in the PCP and has to be open beyond the 28 Member States, EEA and countries in the EU Neighbourhood policy also bidders from all WTO signatory countries for all types of purchases covered by the WTO GPA.