The Innovation Act
On 9 September 2026 the European Commission adopted a proposal for a European Innovation Act — a regulation to turn Europe's scientific excellence into industrial leadership. It is a key action under the Competitiveness Compass and the EU Startup and Scaleup Strategy (Commission — European Innovation Act).
What it is
The Act targets the gap between research and market: Europe produces a large share of high-quality science but innovative ideas too often scale elsewhere. The proposal eases the path from research to commercial success within the Single Market — including regulatory sandboxes and support for scale-ups (Commission news, 9 Sep 2026).
How it interacts with the new Public Procurement Act
Both proposals were adopted the same day and are designed as a pair: the PPA Act rewrites how buyers contract, the Innovation Act uses that buying power as demand-side leverage for innovation. In practice they meet in:
- Procurement of innovative solutions — pre-commercial procurement and innovation partnerships become mainstream instruments rather than exceptions.
- Quality criteria — the PPA Act's ≥30% award weight for sustainability, social and innovation goals is the channel through which the Innovation Act rewards novel solutions (see our note on PPA Art. 40).
- European preference — the PPA Act's preference for European suppliers also protects the commercial runway of EU innovators (see PPA Art. 27).
Universities and research bodies should note that the Innovation Act focuses on industry-facing measures and procurement, and sidesteps careers and academic mobility (EUA analysis, 14 Sep 2026).
What changes in practice
- Buyers who never used innovation-procurement tools will be asked to justify why not — expect implementing guidance on "innovation-friendly" award design.
- Suppliers with research-driven products should map their pipeline to the quality criteria that the PPA Act makes mandatory, so pilot-scale deals survive into framework awards.
- Regulatory sandboxes give a controlled route to test novel procurement procedures before the Act's full application date (expected 2029-01-01, transition ongoing).
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