The European Defence Agency (EDA) issued its call on February 15 for applications for the 2023 edition of the Defence Innovation Prize, which this year is dedicated to technologies for situational awareness and technologies for communication and information systems. A total of two prizes (one prize per category) will be awarded for the best innovative ideas. The prize-winners are expected to propose ideas which would, if implemented between now and 2030, contribute to improving and enhancing specific EU defence capabilities.
The winning ideas or concepts will each be awarded €30,000.
The EDA Defence Innovation Prize aims to stimulate defence technological innovation in Europe by supporting non-defence Research and Technology (R&T) communities and innovators who are set to play an ever-bigger role in developing and producing Europe’s future defence capabilities.
From 2023, the EDA Defence Innovation Prize is now under the umbrella of the Hub for EU Defence Innovation (HEDI), a new platform for innovation lead by EDA that was established in March 2022 by the EU’s Strategic Compass for Defence and Security. The innovation prize complements other HEDI’s services such as the EDA Research, Technology and Innovation Papers Award 2023.
The deadline for submitting applications is 15 June 2023.
The contest rules and application criteria/details can be found here, (plus the annexes to the call for applications and more information here).
The prize will be awarded during EDA's annual conference in Brussels in December.
What is expected from applicants?Submitted innovations must be the applicants’ own intellectual property. However, submissions may include improvements of existing ideas, new combinations, or adaptations thereof and which are applicable in a different context. The applicants must demonstrate the innovative added-value of their ideas, compared to what already exists.
Proposals must be innovative, implementable through a collaborative project and financially affordable in terms of future development and exploitation.
The contest is especially, but not exclusively, aimed at non-traditional defence industries, including civil or dual-use producers, and researchers as they play a growing role in inventing and creating the disruptive capabilities that Member States’ armed forces will need tomorrow.
The rules of the contest and the criteria for participation are available here.
No specific defence background is required to be considered for the prize, and consideration is open to innovators from all types of industries and research institutions in EDA Member States, including defence and civil/commercial producers, large companies, start-ups / SMEs, and civil research communities.
Representatives from 18 European Union Member States held the first meeting of the new Military Computer Emergency Response Team Operational Network (MICNET) on 9 February, following agreement among Ministers of Defence last year.
The establishment of this network of national response teams, individually known as milCERTs, is a substantial step towards enhancing the level of cooperation in the cyber domain at EU level, at a time when computer networks are increasingly contested and the number of cyber-attacks against the EU continues to grow.
Cyberattacks have increased exponentially in the past few years, having serious political, financial, and economic consequences across Europe and beyond.
The new programme, MICNET, will be managed by the European Defence Agency (EDA) and is the first outcome of the new Joint Communication on the EU Policy on Cyber Defence
NEW METHOD, TRAININGAlso on 9 February, EDA hosted in Brussels the launch of two other cyber initiatives: the milCERT Interoperability Conference 2023 (MIC2023) and the Cyber Defence Requirement Engineering project applied to the milCERT operational Network (CyDRE4MICNET).
Since 2020, EDA has been developing a framework known as Cyber Defence Requirements Engineering (CyDRE) to provide guidelines for cyber security information, and to establish a system-wide engineering method for all cyber defence projects and activities in EDA.
These can also be shared and used by Member States. It has already been used in maritime surveillance.
With the CyDRE4MICNET project, EDA proposes training Member States representatives on the system’s engineering methodology and using CyDRE along with the management of the new MICNET programme.
EDA supports its 26 Member States in improving their defence capabilities through European cooperation. Acting as an enabler and facilitator for Ministries of Defence willing to engage in collaborative capability projects, the Agency has become the hub for European defence cooperation with expertise and networks allowing it to the whole spectrum of defence capabilities.
Member States use EDA as an intergovernmental expert platform where their collaborative projects are supported, facilitated, and implemented. For more details, please see here.
The Council today approved the draft administrative arrangement between the European Defence Agency (EDA) and the United States Department of Defence (US DoD) with a view to its signature.
The purpose of this arrangement is to provide a framework to exchange information and explore opportunities for cooperation between EDA and the US DoD. An initial scope of such cooperation includes:
The scope of cooperation may, upon mutual consent, progressively develop in the future. Currently, activities falling under the areas of capability development, as well as research and technology remain outside the scope of cooperation.
The arrangement confirms the significance of the transatlantic partnership in security and defence and reflects the importance of a stronger and more capable European defence that contributes to global and transatlantic security and is complementary to NATO.
Background and next stepsIn the EU-U.S. 2021 Summit Statement, leaders committed to work towards an administrative arrangement for the United States with the European Defence Agency.
On 16 November 2021, the EDA Steering Board gave the mandate to the Head of the Agency to negotiate the arrangement, and on 9 December 2022, a draft proposal for an administrative arrangement was submitted to the Defence Ministers in the EDA Steering Board.
The arrangement will enter into effect on the date of the signature by the parties.
On 1 February, the European Defence Agency (EDA) has launched its largest Research and Technology project to develop highly autonomous combat unmanned ground systems. The project, Combat Unmanned Ground Systems (CUGS), brings together nine member states and 28 European industry partners. With a € 35.5 million budget and running for 36 months, CUGS aims to define, design and develop a set of functional modules which will be mounted on to existing platforms. The final phase of the project will test full demonstrators for highly autonomous combat unmanned ground systems.
Autonomous systems provide operational benefits across a very broad range of missions, from intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and logistics missions to combat missions. Deploying unmanned systems reduces the danger to human personnel and manned platforms, while increasing robustness, sustainability and resilience of ground systems. It is expected that these systems will play an increased role in future Armed Forces by bringing faster manoeuvrability and more efficient and precise lethal and non-lethal effects, enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of land systems and ensure an advantage in respect to the adversary.
CUGS - Adapting European PlatformsThe functional modules to be developed in the project will ensure autonomous navigation; command, control, communications, and cooperation; and use of weapon systems. The modules will be integrated on several European autonomous ground systems; the mid-sized platforms Themis (Milrem, Estonia) and Wiesel (Rheinmetall, Germany), and large-sized platforms Type X (Milrem, Estonia), Lince 2 VTLM (Iveco, Italy) and Patria AMV (Patria, Finland).
The project will run across three phases; firstly, with the requirements and standard-based system architecture of the full CUGS demonstrator being developed for both the current autonomous platforms and future modules.
The adaptation of the five existing platforms will begin in parallel with the development of the combat functional modules. In the third phase of the project the solutions will be mounted on the platforms and will be tested and evaluated individually and in a cooperative way in relevant environments.
In the testing phase, the adapted unmanned ground systems should be able to autonomously move, navigate, communicate, detect, identify and lock targets, choose weapon systems and test firing sequences and safety aspects.
Human on the loopEach type of weapon or type of engagement will require some specificity to reach the requested level of capability with a human in/on the loop. This project will contribute to identifying the adequate level of autonomy for autonomous weapon system with humans on the loop and to test relevant features in TRL (Technology readiness levels) demonstrators.
The decision to take lethal actions on the targets will remain a human decision. The execution of this project will be made following in respect to the European Parliament “Resolution on autonomous weapon systems (2018/2752(RSP))”.
Pan-European consortiumDue to the growing importance of unmanned ground systems for operations, nine contributing Member States (cMS) decided to launch the Combat Unmanned Ground Systems (CUGS) project. CUGS is a very ambitious and challenging project, led by Italy, that will also bring together the cMS of Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Finland, France, the Netherlands and Poland, as well as Norway.
The project will be carried out by a consortium led by Italy’s Leonardo and involves other 28 consortium members, namely Iveco, Larimart and MBDA IT, also of Italy, John Cockerill Defence, FN Herstal and the Royal Military Academy of Belgium, Diehl Defence, KMW, MBDA DE and Rheinmetall of Germany, Milrem Robotics, Estonia and the Estonian Military Academy of Estonia, Patria and Bittium of Finland, Nexter, Safran, Thales, MBDA FR and Arquus of France, TNO, Demcon and NCIM of the Netherlands, Kongsberg and FFI of Norway, and WAT, PIAP, ZMT and ASW of Poland.
As a project managed by EDA, the initiative is co-funded by Member States and additional participants can opt in.
More information
The European Defence Agency (EDA) supports its 26 Member States in improving their defence capabilities through European cooperation. Acting as an enabler and facilitator for Ministries of Defence willing to engage in collaborative capability projects, the Agency has become the ‘hub’ for European defence cooperation with expertise and networks allowing it to the whole spectrum of defence capabilities.
Member States use EDA as an intergovernmental expert platform where their collaborative projects are supported, facilitated, and implemented. What we do (europa.eu)
The European Defence Agency (EDA) issued on 1 February 2023 its call for applications to its first ever EDA Research, Technology, and Innovation Papers Awards. This contest will reward a total of three original and valuable defence-related papers covering technologies, processes and applications for enhanced future defence.
The winning entries will come up with ideas which, if implemented between now and 2035, would contribute to enhance specific EU defence capabilities. Entries will be judged on their quality and impact, with a special emphasis on technology and innovation to help cover the European Union’s defence needs and shortfalls.
The contest aims to promote and support the work of early career researchers by introducing their work to the defence community, stimulate engagement of innovators to widen their access to emerging and potentially disruptive research, and identify areas in which additional investment is needed to address future defence capability needs.
Each prize winner will receive €4,000.
The deadline for submitting applications is April 2, 2023.
The contest rules and application criteria can be found here and here, (plus the annexes to the call for applications here). The prize will be formally awarded during the 2023 EDA Defence Innovation Days later this year. The contest is open to all citizens of EDA participating Member States.
The prize is part of EDA’s growing role in fostering innovation. Following the EU’s Strategic Compass for EU Defence and Security and the creation of the Hub for EU Defence Innovation (HEDI), EDA is tasked with promoting pathways to cutting-edge military capabilities.
The EDA awards are part of that task. HEDI serves to stimulate and facilitate cooperation on defence innovation while ensuring operational benefits with related European Commission activities, notably the EU defence innovation scheme, coherence of output with NATO innovation and other EU defence innovation organisations.
EDA supports its 26 Member States in improving their defence capabilities through European cooperation. Acting as an enabler and facilitator for Ministries of Defence willing to engage in collaborative capability projects, the Agency has become the hub for European defence cooperation with expertise and networks allowing it to the whole spectrum of defence capabilities.
Member States use EDA as an intergovernmental expert platform where their collaborative projects are supported, facilitated, and implemented. For more details, please see here.
The European Defence Agency (EDA) issued on 1 February 2023 its call for applications to its first ever EDA Research, Technology, and Innovation Papers Awards. This contest will reward a total of three original and valuable defence-related papers covering technologies, processes and applications for enhanced future defence.
The winning entries will come up with ideas which, if implemented between now and 2035, would contribute to enhance specific EU defence capabilities. Entries will be judged on their quality and impact, with a special emphasis on technology and innovation to help cover the European Union’s defence needs and shortfalls.
The contest aims to promote and support the work of early career researchers by introducing their work to the defence community, stimulate engagement of innovators to widen their access to emerging and potentially disruptive research, and identify areas in which additional investment is needed to address future defence capability needs.
Each prize winner will receive €4,000.
The deadline for submitting applications is April 2, 2023.
The contest rules and application criteria can be found here and here, (plus the annexes to the call for applications here). The prize will be formally awarded during the 2023 EDA Defence Innovation Days later this year. The contest is open to all citizens of EDA participating Member States.
The prize is part of EDA’s growing role in fostering innovation. Following the EU’s Strategic Compass for EU Defence and Security and the creation of the Hub for EU Defence Innovation (HEDI), EDA is tasked with promoting pathways to cutting-edge military capabilities.
The EDA awards are part of that task. HEDI serves to stimulate and facilitate cooperation on defence innovation while ensuring operational benefits with related European Commission activities, notably the EU defence innovation scheme, coherence of output with NATO innovation and other EU defence innovation organisations.
EDA supports its 26 Member States in improving their defence capabilities through European cooperation. Acting as an enabler and facilitator for Ministries of Defence willing to engage in collaborative capability projects, the Agency has become the hub for European defence cooperation with expertise and networks allowing it to the whole spectrum of defence capabilities.
Member States use EDA as an intergovernmental expert platform where their collaborative projects are supported, facilitated, and implemented. For more details, please see here.