EDA co-ordinates European pilot research and technology project with common budget
The European Defence Agency (EDA) expects to secure final national agreements by early November for contributions to a pilot defence research and technology funding programme established to explore force protection issues.
Depending on its success, the €50 million ($63 million) programme may be followed by a series of joint investments in other military technology areas, under an initiative that EDA chief executive Nick Witney says could become "the primary vehicle for defence ministries in Europe to pool their efforts and resources in defence research and technology".
Speaking at the Aerospace and Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD) annual conference in Vienna on 13 October, Witney said the bulk of negotiations among European Union member nations have been completed for the project. "I am increasingly confident that, by the time of our next steering board meeting in November, we will be in a position to announce the launch of a programme with a common budget to which most of our member states will have chosen to subscribe."
Witney says the bulk of European defence research and technology funds are now "parcelled up in national boxes, [and] spent in national boxes - often duplicatively". The EDA would like to see this spending occurring co-operatively, he says, noting that the current total of European defence research spending is equivalent to the total annual spend of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Witney says work packages for the force protection project will be competitively offered among the expected 16 participating European security co-operation programme nations - rather than following the more traditional approach of funding governments nominating their own national industrial or scientific development champions.
The proposed joint research initiative will remain separate to the European Commission-operated common security research programme and the planned launch of a broader European Joint Technology Initiative under the EU's Framework 7 research funding programme.
Source: Flight International
