AI4Cities is often asked whether suppliers from the UK are elligible to submit a bid. We can finally give a definite, positive, answer to that question. In the EU-UK withdrawal agreement,  the references to natural or legal persons residing or established in a Member State of the EU are to be understood to include natural or legal persons residing or established in the UK.

This means that AI4Cities allows UK entities to apply for the PCP procurement in any form they like (e.g. as main bidder, consortium member, subcontractor, etc) and that it allows them to perform all R&D for the PCP in the UK. This also means that participants from other countries can perform their activities in the UK. As a reminder, a tenderer can only participate in the call if a minimum of 50% of their project budget/activities take place in the EU or an EU-associated country (Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, and Ukraine).

We can also give a positive answer to suppliers asking whether they will own the intellectual property at the end of the project. Each supplier will keep ownership of all the results they generate during the pre-commercial procurement implementation. The tendered price is expected to take this into account. Yet suppliers are expected to commercially exploit the results they generate. If they fail to comply with this obligation, or if they use the results to the detriment of the public interest, the Buyers Group has the right to require a transfer of ownership of the IPR’s. The Buyers Group further has the right to access results on a royalty-free basis for its own use, grant non-exclusive licenses third parties and to exploit results (without the right to sublicense) under fair and reasonable conditions.

The Buyers Group consists of Forum Virium Helsinki (representing the city of Helsinki), Cap Digital (representing the Paris Region), the city of Amsterdam, the city of Copenhagen, the city of Tallinn, and the city of Stavanger. More answers about the cities participating in AI4Cities, the Pre-Commercial Procurement process, submitting a tender, the selection of winning tenders, the datasets and many other relevant questiosn can be found in the FAQ section of the project website. Can you not find what you are looking for? Send us your question to info@ai4cities.eu or to tech@ai4cities.eu.