CPSI: less specification, more room for innovation

Every public tender begins with a seemingly simple question: what, exactly, does the Public Administration want to buy?

Under the traditional model, the answer comes before the tender. The public body identifies the need, defines the solution, describes the subject matter of the contract, and calls on the market to compete over who can deliver it on the best terms.

This model works well for buying what already exists. But what about when the public problem does not yet have a ready-made solution?

Legislation has been opening up room for the market itself to contribute new ways of meeting the public interest. This is the case with competitive dialogue and the Expression of Interest Procedure (Procedimento de Manifestação de Interesse — PMI), both provided for in Law No. 14.133/2021, and, even more directly, with the Public Contract for Innovative Solutions (Contrato Público para Solução Inovadora — CPSI).

What changes with the CPSI

Established by the Legal Framework for Startups (Complementary Law No. 182/2021), the CPSI allows the tender notice (edital) to describe the problem to be solved, the expected results, and the technological challenges involved, without predetermining the technical solution. It falls to the bidders to propose different paths for reaching the result.

In practice, the model resembles a proof of concept (PoC), common in the private sector. The tender may even select more than one proposal for testing. The choice of solution ceases to be the starting point and becomes an outcome of the process itself.

How does this work in practice?

In 2024, the Federal Court of Accounts (Tribunal de Contas da União — TCU) launched a CPSI to seek new ways of inspecting, at large scale, paving and road-surfacing works in Brazilian municipalities. Without predefining the technology, it contracted three startups offering distinct solutions: drones and digital twins, crowdsourcing, and satellite imagery processed by artificial intelligence.

The National Council of Justice (Conselho Nacional de Justiça — CNJ) took a similar path in 2025, seeking solutions to transform the services provided to users of the Jus.br portal. Two companies were selected with distinct proposals, without the body having predefined an architecture or product.

These cases illustrate the logic of the instrument: a single problem can be tackled through different technological routes, tested before the most suitable solution is defined.

If there is no specification, how are proposals judged?

This is the central question. If proposals may be technically different, objectivity must lie elsewhere.

Complementary Law No. 182/2021 sets out criteria such as the potential to solve the problem, savings for the Administration, the degree of development of the solution, the maturity of the business model, economic viability, and the cost-benefit ratio. Price matters, but it is not assessed in isolation.

The competition ceases to compare technically identical products and instead compares different solutions capable of producing functionally equivalent results.

Hence the logic that guides the CPSI: the less the Administration defines the means, the more precise it must be in defining the ends.

Practical implications

The CPSI does not reduce the Administration’s duty to plan. It shifts its focus: from specifying the solution to understanding the problem and the expected result.

For this reason, certain precautions are essential:

• the problem must be described clearly;
• the expected results must be made explicit;
• the evaluation criteria must be objective; and
• the tender notice should avoid unnecessary steering toward specific technologies.

A tender notice that describes the problem poorly or sets vague criteria is not more open to innovation. On the contrary, it increases the risk of challenges for the Administration and uncertainty for bidders.

For startups and technology companies, the CPSI represents an opportunity to access the public market and test solutions at real scale. For the State, it makes it possible to pursue innovation without abandoning equal treatment and competitiveness.

The formula is less specification and more planning. The CPSI opens up room for the market’s creativity precisely because it requires the Public Authorities to understand deeply the problem they intend to solve.