The EU is taking further steps to strengthen the development of dual-use technologies, by better linking civilian and defence innovation initiatives.
The European Commission (EC) is mulling further ways to have Europe’s defence sector benefit from Horizon Europe’s success in supporting innovation, as laid out by Nynke Tigchelaar, Head of Unit for European Defence Fund (EDF) implementation at the Commission’s defence directorate general (DG DEFIS) at the second European Defence and Security Conference in Brussels. The goal is to close the “information gap” between the civil and defence research programmes, by better connecting the EDF to Horizon Europe’s innovation instruments. The goal is to identify technologies as yet unexploited because their potential for defence has not yet been fully realised or because they face economic challenges, help the technologies mature and integrate them into the capability development, and also support spin-outs to civil sectors.
Driving this change is the EU Defence Innovation Scheme (EUDIS), building on the EC’s Action Plan on synergies between civil, defence and space industries. EUDIS will invest €2 billion to support innovation and entrepreneurship on critical technologies in the European defence industry. The EC will leverage the available budget from the European Defence Fund (€1.46 billion), combined with Co-funding from Member States (€90 million) and also expects to leverage between €400 million and €500 million from other public and private sources.
Following preliminary work to develop defence R&D cooperation in the PADR and EDIDP actions running from 2017 to 2020, the EDF began its innovation-focus already in the first year of its activity in 2021. It introduced calls directed at SMEs and focused on disruptive defence technologies. Between 4% and 8% of the EDF budget over the period of the framework programme is devoted to development or research for disruptive technologies). In the 2022 EDF work programme, the Commission is launching a further set of actions to support innovative entrepreneurs, start-ups and SMEs and bring them into the defence industrial ecosystem, most prominent among which is a defence equity facility. The EC intends to invest €20 million per year into the equity facility, with a total of €100 million foreseen for this framework period. This investment aims at generating a total of €500 million investment capacity during the lifetime of the Fund for the benefit of the defence industry, by working with the European Investment Fund (EIF) and private investors. A second novelty is the so-called “Technological challenge”, aiming at attesting and maturing technologies for hidden-threats detection. Further support measures informed by the experience of the European Innovation Council (EIC), include business acceleration services for participating companies: matchmaking with primes, investors and end-users, and business coaching.
Expected next year are further initiatives including so-called spin-in calls and cross-border innovation networks. The spin-in calls will pull relevant technologies developed in civilian programmes into defence and break down the silos that exist between defence end-users and civilian-developed technology. The cross-border innovation networks will give SMEs access to test facilities and hackathons. In this way, the EDF could benefit from the research results funded by Horizon Europe’s much larger programme, and can help the military world stay abreast of the latest potential in key technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum technologies or big data.
The increasing focus on developing dual-use technologies has gained a new urgency with the Russian military aggression against Ukraine. The EU recognises the need to increase autonomy of action, while reducing its dependencies, by increasing support for Research, Technology Development and Innovation. The Action Plan on Synergies and the Strategic Compass call for innovation. The current and planned innovation measures are brought together in the EUDIS.
The participation to an EDF project of entities established in non-associated third countries is possible but subject to conditions defined to ensure the security and defence interests of the EU and its Member States (see EDF regulation, article 9 for details). They also guarantee the freedom of action of Member States in the use and export of resulting defence equipment. Such entities cannot receive EDF funding.