WienWin: Vienna Public Procurement from Innovative Businesses

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WienWin is a public procurement initiative launched by the City of Vienna to promote local businesses.
What are the main aims and objectives?

The WienWin Vienna Public Procurement program aims to position Vienna as a business location and foster innovation through strategic public purchasing. Launched in 2009, this initiative serves as a database of innovative products and services offered by Vienna-based companies to public authorities. The main objectives of WienWin are to showcase the city's innovative potential, provide a systematic overview of local innovations, and connect innovative Viennese companies with public sector buyers. By doing so, the program seeks to promote the adoption of cutting-edge technologies and services in city operations, support the growth of local businesses, and strengthen Vienna's innovation ecosystem. WienWin also serves as a valuable tool for project directors in the Vienna City Administration and city-owned enterprises, helping them identify innovative solutions for public procurement needs.

How does the program work?

With this project Vienna aims to strengthen the city as a centre for innovation by using the city's purchasing power of approximately € 5 billion per year to support innovative businesses in the region. In this way the public procurement authorities of the city administration can function as early adopters or pioneering clients and create a lead market for innovative goods and services offered by local businesses and research institutions.

Projects are screened by an expert jury before being listed on an online platform. Procurement events are also organised to help connect prospective buyers and suppliers.

At the heart of the WienWin initiative is a database of innovative products and services offered by Viennese entrepreneurs and research institutions. This is provided through the web portal www.wienwin.at which provides an instant overview of available innovative goods and services.

To ensure high quality standards, the web portal only presents products and services that were either developed with R&D funds from a regional, national or European funding institution or are solutions whose level of innovation has been confirmed by an expert jury.

What is the overall cost?

There is no available information on the cost of running this program.

How was it implemented?

WienWin was created by the City of Vienna and the Vienna Business Agency in 2014 as part of Vienna's broader strategy to leverage public procurement for economic development and innovation.

At its core is a partnership between Vienna’s technology agency ZIT – Die Technologieagentur der Stadt Wien GmbH - and the city administration authorities. It also comprises a network of more than 900 experts in city administration and some 200 local innovative companies.

WienWin is politically hosted by the city councillor in charge of finance and economic growth and the councillor in charge of human resources and public procurement to provide a well-coordinated administrative and strategic fit.

What impact has been measured?

Two years after its launch, the project had already run over 130 procurement events and led to more than 50 trials or purchases, including a new robot for dangerous situations which was purchased by the Viennese Firefighters, and a monitoring system for bridges which has been installed in new subway bridge in Vienna.

The City can point to at least 36 success stories or good practice cases, where innovative solutions developed by Viennese companies and research institutions are now being used by the City of Vienna. These WienWin success stories are extensively publicised to encourage more innovators to register what they have to offer through the website.

CURATED BY

Chris Haley

Head of Research
United Kingdom