White Paper Accelerating the Emergence and Development of Innovation Ecosystems through Procurement: A Toolkit

The document argues that procurement is an underused tool for fostering inclusive innovation ecosystems. It presents a three-stage framework—seeding emergence, scaling local capability, and developing global hubs—supported by global case studies and a maturity model based on leadership, culture, and systems.

• Procurement represents a significant portion of economic activity, accounting for 12% of GDP and 29% of total government spending across OECD countries, yet it is often identified as an area where governments have taken the least policy action to support start-up ecosystems.
• The toolkit proposes a three-theme framework for using procurement to build innovation ecosystems: seeding the emergence of inclusive ecosystems to inspire participation, scaling local capability to compete globally by cultivating expertise, and developing global hubs to attract international innovators.
• Case studies demonstrate the use of targeted procurement to increase inclusivity, such as Kenya's AGPO programme, which mandates that women, youth, and people with disabilities access 30% of government procurement opportunities, and Queensland's Deadly Innovation programme, which targets a 3% increase in procurement from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses by 2022.
• Governments can scale local capability through accreditation and strategic investment, as seen in Singapore's Accreditation@SGD programme, which pre-qualifies local companies for government and corporate buyers, and China's investment of approximately $60 billion into the new energy vehicle (NEV) industry through public procurement between 2009 and 2017.
• The USA's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) programme exemplifies an outcomes-based procurement approach, requiring federal departments with R&D budgets over $100 million to allocate 2.5% of those budgets to R&D developed by small businesses.
• The document identifies three critical success factors for maturing an innovation ecosystem: leadership (commitment to a shared vision), culture (diversity as a defining characteristic), and systems (flexible processes capable of change).
• To overcome risk aversion in procurement, the toolkit suggests three concrete ideas: outcome-based procurement (rewarding the ability to solve a problem), staged procurement (breaking the process into separate stages for co-creation), and shifting from a risk-wary to a risk-aware approach using portfolio management.
• Inclusive procurement may lead to 'tenderpreneurship,' where businesses pursue lucrative tenders that do not align with their core business or commercial viability, potentially derailing the development of a robust innovation ecosystem.

APA

World Economic Forum (2019). White Paper Accelerating the Emergence and Development of Innovation Ecosystems through Procurement: A Toolkit. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF__Innovation_Ecosystems_Toolkit.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. White Paper Accelerating the Emergence and Development of Innovation Ecosystems through Procurement: A Toolkit. 2019. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF__Innovation_Ecosystems_Toolkit.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=White Paper Accelerating the Emergence and Development of Innovation Ecosystems through Procurement: A Toolkit |date=October 2019 |url=http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF__Innovation_Ecosystems_Toolkit.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2019white, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{White Paper Accelerating the Emergence and Development of Innovation Ecosystems through Procurement: A Toolkit}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2019}, month = oct, url = {http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF__Innovation_Ecosystems_Toolkit.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }