Defence Ministers from 17 NATO member countries agreed to take the lead in developing NATO’s first innovation fund, on Friday 22 October at a signing ceremony.
The 17 countries are Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and the UK. Luxembourg has also offered to provide the legal framework and contribute to the costs of setting up the fund.
“The fund is expected to invest €1 billion in innovators across the Alliance working on emerging and disruptive technologies”, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said after the ministerial meeting. He said the fund would leverage other sources of public and private investment, promote investment opportunities and market access across the Alliance, and protect the most innovative technologies and entrepreneurs from competitors.
In parallel to this fund, NATO is setting up the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) (see EUROPE 12740/1). Under DIANA, the Allies have committed to providing a network of technology test centres and accelerator sites across the Alliance to better harness civilian innovation for the security of the Allies and to strengthen the technological link between Europe and North America. “We must ensure that the Allies are able to exploit the different technologies seamlessly, between their forces and with each other”, Mr Stoltenberg said.
Both initiatives should be fully implemented by the time of the NATO Summit in Madrid at the end of June 2022. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)