Starting gun sounds for PRO4VIP European Project in Barcelona

The PRO4VIP European PCP and IPP project was inaugurated on 23 February. It enjoys the participation of the Barcelona Macula Foundation, together with 12 other institutions from England, the rest of Spain, Denmark, France and Italy.  The project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 under grant agreement No 645584.

Dr. Jordi Monés, the Ophthalmologist and Medical Director of the Barcelona Macula Foundation: Research for Vision, took part in the inauguration of the European project entitled Innovative PROcurement for Visually Impaired People (PRO4VIP). The event took place on 23 February at the head offices of the Catalan Agency for Health Information and Quality (AQuAS) in Barcelona.

PRO4VIP is a European Pre-Commercial Public Procurement (PCP) and Innovative Public Procurement (IPP) project that forms part of the European Vision 2020 strategy to combat preventable blindness, especially due to old age.

Innovative Public Procurement is an administrative action that encourages innovation geared to boosting the development of new innovative markets from the demand side through the instrument of public procurement. This encompasses two different spheres: the Public Procurement of Innovative Technology (PPIT) and Pre-Commercial Public Procurement (PCP).

The aims of this project are: the creation and consolidation of an pan-European network of procurers; the definition of a common innovation procurement roadmap in the short term and in the long term; the definition of the cross-border and joint public procurement of innovation procedure(s) that best meet(s) PRO4VIP procuring authorities’ needs (that could be either a PCP or a PPI or both) and that in line with Vision 2020 would either support the early detection and treatment of functional low vision conditions or would support the provision for low vision services; the mutual learning within the partners.

Coordinated by AQuAS, PRO4VIP boasts the participation of institutions and specialists from a variety of European countries. The 12 participants in the consortium are Agència de Qualitat i Avaluació Sanitàries (ES), coordinating the project, Sara Bedin (IT), Universitá degli Studio de Salerno (IT), Istituto Regionale Rittmeyer per i Ciechi di Trieste (IT), Regione Autonoma Friuli Venezia Giulia (IT), Consorzio per l’Area di Recerca Cientifica e Tecnologica di Trieste Consorzio Area (IT), European Blind Union -EBU (FR), Berufsförrderungswerk Dürenm (DE), Barcelona Macula Foundation (ES), Zenit Zentrum fuer Innovation und Technik in Nordrhein-Westfalen GMBH (DE), European Clinical Research Infraestructure Network ECRIN-ERIC (FR) and UCLPartners Limited (UK).