EU sees public authorities boosting innovation

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission published guidelines on Friday showing how public authorities could use their massive purchasing power to boost innovation and growth in the European Union, and help fill the EU's research and development gap with the United States.

Typically in public procurement, governments and other public authorities purchase goods and services that are already fully tested and proven.

The guidelines said authorities could become involved much earlier in the development lifecycle, particularly in high tech areas such as research into information and communication technologies for healthcare and medicine.

The Commission said this could be done without infringing strict EU state aid rules.

"Europe's public sector has massive buying power but until now it has not found a clear way to strongly link mid to long term public purchasing needs with research and development programs," EU Information Society Commissioner, Viviane Reding said in a statement.

So-called pre-commercial public procurement is not new.

The United States has been applying the principle since the late 1950s with its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

The U.S. public sector spends $50 billion a year on research and development procurement, equivalent to half the research investment gap between the United States and Europe.

(Reporting by Huw Jones, Editing by Louise Ireland)