Have you ever imagined that your R&D results from EU-funded programmes (eg Horizon2020 or HorizonEurope) could help you expand your business towards the defence sector?
The European Defence Fund (EDF) has been designed to incentivise and support collaborative, cross-border research and development in the area of defence.
It’s purpose is to increase the EU’s technological edge and develop the capabilities that are key for the strategic autonomy and resilience of the Union and its Member States and the protection of its citizens.
EDF comes on top of EU member states’ efforts; it encourages the cooperation among companies and research actors of all sizes and geographic origin in the EU. In order to reach such a purpose, the EDF has foreseen EUDIS – EU Defence Innovation Scheme – a series of support measures to help European innovative companies bring their ideas to defence end-users.
It targets the European entrepreneurs, start-ups, SMEs or mature innovators, interested in defence sector, which can benefit from EUDIS through multiple tracks:
- Innovation challenges / innovation competitions: participants can propose their new ideas in hackathons. The hackathons will gather together people with different expertise and various backgrounds to solve defence challenges. The first EUDIS hackathon is planned to be conducted in April/May 2024 and mentoring for the winning hackathon teams is to follow the hackathon event
- Technological challenges : in a technological challenge, the organiser defines common experimental protocols in cooperation with the participating R&D teams before providing the environment enabling the teams to test their systems according to these protocols. Technological challenges are particularly suited to studying complex systems, especially those involving artificial intelligence and machine learning
- Defence innovation hubs : will distribute cascade funding grants to SMEs or start-ups (without necessarily having previous experience operating in the defence sector) setting up a consortium for the test and acceleration of innovation in thematic EU defence.
- Spin-in calls : it’s about the migration of results from civil EU-funded R&D programmes to the defence sector : a way to expand companies’ business portfolio
- Defence Equity Facility: easier access to equity investments in Europe for the defence sector. COMING SOON !
- SMEs empowerement : application to open SME & disruptive technologies calls (lump sum grants for R&D), receive business coaching & benefit from matchmaking
EUDIS aims to attract 300-400 starts-ups and SMEs
The opportunity offered by this series of tracks is a way to optimisation and valorise your R&D results from civil research. Commercial valorisation of R&D results was the topic of our workshop “NO (I)P-AIN, NO GAIN! EXPLOITING YOUR R&I RESULTS AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY“, run last June 6th, 2023.
Interested? Get in touch with Barbara Andreani – bandreani@hub.brussels
