Q&A

Last update: May 20, 2025

General Questions about PCP–WISE 

PCP WISE is a Pre-commercial Procurement (PCP) action funded by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe Programme and selected under the call HORIZON-CL6-2024-GOVERNANCE-01-5. PCP WISE plays a key role in advancing the European Green Deal’s objectives by enhancing the use of Environmental Observation (EO), data and products. The project started in January 2025 and runs for 36 months. PCP WISE has an allocated budget of €19 million, including €12 million for financing the R&D phases of the PCP. 

PCP WISE is an innovative project aimed at developing cutting-edge solutions (up to TRL 8) for water management and climate resilience across Europe using the PCP instrument. By leveraging space technology and EO data, PCP-WISE seeks to address critical challenges related to floods, fires, and infrastructure impacts both in rural and urban areas. This collaborative effort brings together public buyers, research institutions, and industry experts to create and implement advanced climate services that will enhance Europe’s ability to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change.​ 

PCP-WISE aims to bridge the gap between the existing European (Copernicus) portfolio and operational practices in managing local areas in sectors that depend on meteorology and hydrology. For this purpose, the aim is to develop an integrated water intelligence system that harmonizes data from diverse sources—such as Earth Observation (EO) data, in-situ measurements, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) analytics—within the European Union, through innovation procurement.  

This unified approach is essential for delivering comprehensive, historical, and real-time insights that support effective decision-making at regional, national, and transnational levels, both in the short term (seasonal/multi-annual) and the long term (decadal).

The standardization of data collection and analysis processes under PCP-WISE will improve the ability of public authorities to manage water resources more efficiently. It will also help them respond proactively to climate-related crises, including floods, droughts, heat stress, fires, and infrastructure impacts, thereby increasing long-term climate resilience. The general objective is to enhance climate resilience by improving the availability and use of EO-based information and by aligning regional water management authorities, cities, communities, and crisis organisations across EU Member States and administrative boundaries, particularly within shared river basin systems.  

The tender within the PCP-WISE project will focus on the development of innovative information products to support improved water management in both urban and rural areas. The assignment has two closely linked main objectives: 

  1. From Information Gap to Integrated Insight: The Foundation for Day-to-Day Water Management

One of the key challenges is to develop a robust, validated, and standardized information base on the soil-water-vegetation (SWV) system. This foundational data is currently largely lacking, yet it is essential for gaining daily insight into the local water balance in both urban and rural environments. Without this information, a reliable and integrated soil-water information system cannot be realized. 

The market is therefore challenged to develop this foundation in collaboration with public authorities. This requires combining various types of data — such as remote sensing, field measurements, and model outputs — into a coherent SWV system insight that can be applied consistently across different European contexts. 

Based on this integrated SWV information, a continuous stream of actionable data should be created to support water managers in their routine tasks. This information must be made accessible through user-friendly tools, such as standardized dashboards tailored to local practices. 

This task thus forms the first fundamental building block of the challenge. 

  1. Information Products for Anticipating Extreme Events

In addition to supporting day-to-day management, the challenge explicitly focuses on the development of products that provide insights into current risks, with the goal of better anticipating extreme events such as floods, droughts, heatwaves, and wildfires. These situations are highly context-specific and differ significantly between urban and rural environments, as illustrated in the various use cases. 

The market is asked to develop information products that present these risks in an up-to-date and user-friendly manner. This includes spatial maps updated daily, featuring indicators tailored to the needs of different users — from water managers to emergency response agencies. The maps should be relevant for both preparatory actions (such as planning and prevention) and operational response during incidents. 

Where the first point forms the foundation of an integrated information system, this component represents its application for risk management and climate adaptation. Together, these two pillars contribute to resilient water management in a changing climate (as a basis for hind-now- & forecasting intelligence) 

Additional EO-based services tailored to specific use cases may be requested to provide more localised insights. Generally, two levels of service will be applied at each test site: 

  • A detailed service at the local test site; 
  • A contextual service at the intermediate (river basin) scale. 

In Summary 

This broad scope calls for information that is still largely missing today: validated and standardized information on the SWV system, built upon a robust interoperable hydrological model. This model is essential for achieving integrated, climate-resilient water management. The market is therefore challenged to help develop this SWV model and to seamlessly integrate it with other necessary data sources. Only then can a future-proof soil-water information system be created — one that supports both regular operations and crisis situations. 

Pre-Commercial Procurement

Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) is a procurement approach where public sector organizations procure research and development (R&D) services to address specific public sector needs. This process involves a phased approach, including solution design, prototyping, and testing, allowing public procurers to compare alternative solutions and identify the best value for money. PCP enables public authorities to steer the development of innovative solutions towards their needs, sharing risks and benefits with suppliers under market conditions. 

While both PCP and PPI are tools for innovation procurement, they serve different purposes:​ 

  • Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP): Used when there are no near-to-the-market solutions available, and new R&D is needed. PCP focuses on the development and testing of innovative solutions through a phased and competitive approach. 
  • Public Procurement of Innovative Solutions (PPI): Applied when innovative solutions are nearly or already available in small quantities on the market but are not yet deployed on a large scale. PPI focuses on the procurement of these innovative solutions to address public sector challenges without the need for additional R&D. 

In summary, PCP is about developing new solutions, while PPI is about adopting existing innovative solutions. 

Ownership of results (foreground): each supplier will retain ownership of the IPR attached to the results it generates during the implementation of pre-commercial procurement (PCP). This should be reflected in the tender price. IPR ownership will be subject to the following: 

  • The Buyers’ Group group has the right: 1) to access the results, royalty-free, for their own use; 2) to grant (or require suppliers to grant) non-exclusive licenses to third parties and 3) to exploit the results under fair and reasonable conditions (without sub-licensing rights) 
  • The Buyers’ Group has the right to require suppliers to transfer ownership of the IPR if suppliers fail to meet their obligation to commercially exploit the results  

Open Market Consultation

The timetable of activities and required actions of the OMC are as follows:

The target groups of this OMC are technology providers and end users working in the following fields:  

  • Civil engineering and management, including upscaling  
  • Hydrology (models, skills, services)  
  • Crisis risk/impact assessment  
  • Remote sensing value-add services  
  • ICT for operational information production (upscaling, back/front-end processing)  
  • Legal and contracting (EU standards, AI, IPR, etc.) 
  • Research and innovation skillis in the above disciplines  

All interested parties are invited to take part in the OMC. However, please note that technology providers established in countries not eligible to participate in Horizon Europe Innovation Actions in any capacity cannot participate in the upcoming tender of the PCP procedure.