Via contract notice 2021/S 246-650597 a consortium of procurers led by Region Jämtland Härjedalen (RJH) launched an open tender procedure to purchase R&D services from a number of R&D providers in parallel. The aim was to compare competing alternative solution approaches to address the INCAREHEART challenge. The procurement was announced to be in the form of a pre-commercial procurement (PCP) with a phased approach, i.e. a framework agreement covering 3 R&D phases: solution design, prototyping, original development and validation and testing of a limited set of first products or services. Six tenders were selected to proceed to phase I. This notice announces the tenderers which offered the best value-for-money for phase II and which were selected to proceed to phase II following a call-off. Three tenderers were offered a specific contract for phase II of the PCP.

More information can be found on the INCAREHEART website: https://incareheart.eu/

Procurement will take the form of pre-commercial procurement (PCP), where R&D service contracts will be awarded in parallel to different R&D providers in a phased approach. This will allow alternative, competing solutions to be compared. Each selected operator will receive a framework contract covering three R&D phases. The three phases are: Solution design, prototype development, original development and validation and testing of a limited volume of the first products or services. After each phase, interim evaluations are conducted to select the best of the competing solutions. The contractors with the best value for money will be offered a specific contract for the next phase. The selected operators will retain ownership of the intellectual property rights (IPRs) they generate during the PCP and will be able to use them to exploit the full market potential of the solutions developed.