The decree of the Ministry of Economic Development has been published in the Official Gazette, making available to public administrations 50 million euro to finance calls for intelligent public applications.

The aim of the decree is to improve the quality of life of citizens and the efficiency of public services through innovative or pre-commercial tenders, which will facilitate the new challenges and innovation needs expressed by public administrations.

The allocation from the Sustainable Growth Fund amounts at this stage to EUR 50 million, which can be supplemented by resources from the Operational Programmes co-financed by the European Structural and Investment Funds (EIS) and by ordinary resources from other relevant administrations, both central and local.

The implementation of the interventions will pass through one or more calls for tenders that will be issued by the MISE in accordance with the discipline of innovation procurement and pre-commercial procurement and will select solutions that involve a significant technological advance and generate a positive impact on the quality of life of citizens, on the business environment of businesses or on the efficiency of the operation of the PA.

Companies and start-ups will be able to take part in the calls for proposals, presenting innovative projects designed to meet the country's "smart" needs. Specifically, the funds will cover in particular research and development, prototyping and testing of new solutions.

Each call for tenders will be divided into several phases, such as the elaboration and presentation of a technical feasibility study of the proposed solution, related to a development of the prototype and finally the implementation of the proposed solution with its experimental release in specific areas.

The calls will also define the methods for the acquisition and use of the results to facilitate their adoption by the PA.