1. Pre-commercial public procurement and cross-border Living Labs Pioneering Europe 2020 Smart Regions Espoo, 26 April 2013

2. Cross-border Living Labs in Aosta Valley What is a Living Lab? The Living Lab is an ecosystem of open innovation, based on the development of partnership between enterprises, research centres, universities, end-users, and public sector. The main purpose is to promote and substain the active role of users to the innovation of products and services in economically and socially strategical sectors, with the aim of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.

3. Cross-border Living Labs in Aosta Valley Legal and administrative framework • Programme: Cross-border Cooperation Interreg Alcotra Italy France 2007-2013 • Project: Alcotra Innovation, duration September 2010 – November 2013 • Partners: Piedmont, Aosta Valley, Liguria for Italy, Rhône-Alpes and Provence-Alpes-Côtes d’Azur for France • Objective: to create and develop a culture of partnership and action among the innovation actors on both sides of the Alpine frontier Italy- France, in order to improve their innovation capacity and ability to compete internationally with better results. • Budget: 1,2 million euros for Region Aosta Valley

4. Vallée Lab is the Living Lab created in 2012 in Aosta Valley, member of European Network of Living Labs since 24 May 2012 The most important actors of our Living Lab are: – Region Aosta Valley, regional public authority, organisation hosting the Living Lab; – the other partners of the Alcotra Innovation project: Piedmont and Liguria in Italy, Rhône-Alpes and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur in France; – innovative enterprises, providing R&D services and prototypes able to be experimented, improved, validated within the Living Lab; – universities and research centres, collaborating with the private companies on R&D and experimentation activities, in order to jointly fulfil emerging societal and market needs and requirements; – users, such as municipalities, local communities and other public entities, willing to test the prototypes; – funder, the EU Interreg Programme, that finances, through the cross-border cooperation project “Alcotra Innovation”, the management of the Living Lab, including the pre-commercial public procurement. Vallée Lab

5. Mission of Vallée Lab Our Living Lab is expected to offer the following values and services: • Facilitator and catalyst for the experimentation by end-users of new products/services developed by innovative enterprises; • Early adoption of new products/services fulfilling societal needs, through pre- commercial public procurements issued by the public authority; • Living Lab as physical and intangible cross-border milieu of meeting between the different actors of open innovation; • Facilitator of matchmaking between needs, expectations and requirements of users, customers, and in general communities, on the one hand, and prototypes and business ideas developed by the entrepreneurial and research system on the other hand; • High value-added consultancy and technical assistance.

6. Cross-border Living Labs and Pre-commercial public procurement Development of a strategic relationship between open innnovation, public policies on innovation and internationalisation and experimentation of eco- innovative products and services. Region Aosta Valley, as a first adopter of innovative solutions, via public procurement procedures, plans to procure R&D and prototypation services able to deal in an efficient, effective and sustainable way with the economic and social needs identified from the local community. Cross border Living Labs for the experimentation of prototypes in real-life conditions.

7. Pre-commercial public procurement of eco-innovation in Aosta Valley The local communities start a dialogue in order to define a set of common, shared, emerging economic and social needs (smart energies, intelligent mobility, sustainable management system…): innovative SMEs have the opportunity to enter in these new, challenging and high added value markets. In particular, the strategic sectors selected for the pilot action on pre- commercial public procurement are the following ones: • Smart energies (alternative energy sources, energy efficiency); • Intelligent mobility (transport and logistic sectors, safety an security monitoring on territory).

8. Pre-commercial procurement tendering process: research and development services as ruled in Directive 2004/18/EC, pursuant to Article 16 letter f. Several identified needs for which commercial solutions are not yet available, but at the same time, they are not too far from existing solutions. Invitation to tender, public, open and transparent, concerning the exploration of possible solutions able to fulfil the needs and requirements above mentioned: the tender for the pre-commercial public procurement within the technological platforms of smart energies and intelligent mobility was issued by Region Aosta Valley on March 2012 and the deadline for the submission of bids was on 22 June 2012.

9. Pre-commercial public procurement of eco- innovation in Aosta Valley Global budget of the 2 PCP tenders issued: about 1 million euros Results of the 2 PCP tenders: • 4 projects selected for smart energies (eco-innovative hydrogen storage system, smart metering on energy consumption and production from traditional and renewable sources); • 3 projects selected on intelligent mobility (monitoring system for safety and traffic control on working sites along roads and highway, mobile application on smartphones for booking parking integrated with a travel planning system, mobile application on smartphones for bike sharing). Last October the winning companies of the first tender, issued in March 2012, signed the contracts with the regional public authority Aosta Valley. Since last November they have undertaken R&D and prototyping activities, now coming to the conclusions. Onve achieved the R&D results, since the month of May the tests of the prototypes in real-life settings via the cross-border Living Lab Vallée Lab will be implemented with a duration of 6 months.

10. Cross-border Living Labs Example of cross-border Living Lab: experimentation, testing and validation of innovative systems for parking, integrated with an informative platform on local public transport This Living Lab will see the presence of end users localised in: • Cogne, a small village on high mountain, as well as in natural reserve of Grand Paradis in the territory of our Region Aosta Valley; • several municipalities of Aulps Valley, in France.

11. Thank you for paying attention! Mr. Francesco Fionda Project Manager of the Directorate Productive Activities, Region Aosta Valley E-mail: f.fionda@regione.vda.it