precommercial

Precommercial refers to activities or products that are in the stage before they reach the commercial market. In policy and procurement contexts, the term is most often associated with pre-commercial procurement (PCP), a formal approach used by public authorities to acquire research and development services to explore, develop, and test new solutions for public needs that are not yet commercially available.

The PCP process is typically competitive and staged. Public authorities invite multiple suppliers to work in parallel on different solutions, with funding released in phases tied to milestones. The approach aims to share risk and cost between the public buyer and industry, generate practical knowledge, and gather user feedback early. Intellectual property terms vary by contract, but a common pattern is that the authority obtains the rights needed to use the resulting solutions for its purposes, while ownership of background IP remains with the contractors, and foreground IP is license-based according to agreed terms.

Purposeful use of PCP is to reduce technology and market risks that can hinder later commercialization, and to help shape markets by demonstrating demand and collecting evidence of performance in real-world settings. While most widely used in the European Union, similar pre-commercial or early-stage procurement approaches appear in other jurisdictions as a way to stimulate innovation.

Precommercial can also describe any activity in the early, not-yet-commercial stage, such as prototypes, pilots, or field tests, even when not tied to a formal public procurement process.