EDA launches innovation push

Homeland February 1, 2017

The EDA has launched a project aimed at putting innovation at the forefront of defence capabilities.

The initiative is designed to help identify innovative activities that could be useful to the Agency and then how these can be managed to create additional value.

The EDA has pinpointed that innovation is key to strengthening Europe’s defence capabilities as clearly stated in the new EU Global Strategy (EUGS) as well as in the European Commission’s European Defence Action Plan.

Innovation can be perceived as the creation and application of new products, services and processes, including the creation of a new technology, product, process or service, as well as the application of existing technology to a different problem or domain.

Using technology developed from other domains gives the benefits in the reduction of initial investment risk and time in application to military capability.

The EDA is focussed on the idea of new concepts for existing technology with innovation in the defence sector aiming at enhancing military capability.

RAND Europe and Indra Systemas S.A will carry out two studies to be carried dealing with different aspects of innovation.

Project objectives include:

Analysis of the current defence research innovation strategies and identification of best practice in terms of organisational structures, supporting policies and incentives for research innovation management
Analysis of stakeholders, environment, specific defence requirements related to innovation and identification of appropriate organizational structures applicable to defence
Identification of candidate technologies for innovation injection and preparation of scenarios for a follow on proof of concept
Identification of innovation management methods and state-of-the-art practices, such as design thinking and transfer of knowledge to be used within the EDA’s research and innovation communities.

Initial meetings took place on 16th and 20th of January, discussing the transformation of the objectives into tangible outcomes, which will help EDA to provide better support to the innovation activities of Member States and those under the Preparatory Action for Defence Research and the future European Defence Research Programme.

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EDA Europe Indra Systemas Innovation RAND Europe