On Thursday 16 May, the European Commission announced the results of its call for proposals under the European Defence Fund 2023. As a result, 54 joint European defence research and development projects will receive €1,031 million in EU funding: €265 million will finance 30 research projects and €766 million will be used to finance 24 capability development projects, 14 of which are linked to a permanent structured cooperation (PESCO).
The projects that have been chosen cover a range of critical areas, including cyber defence, land, air and naval combat, protection of space assets and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) defence.
Specifically, they will provide better situational awareness to guarantee access to space, advance technologies for a future main battle tank, the strategic airlift of oversized goods, defence technologies against unmanned aerial systems such as drones, a new suspension system for heavy armoured vehicles, a prototype European patrol corvette and laser-based directed energy weapons.
For the first time, four projects will be supporting the transfer of civil innovations to the defence sector.
581 legal entities from 26 EU Member States and Norway are participating in the selected proposals. On average, these proposals involve 17 entities from eight different countries. 42% of the entities are SMEs, and they will receive more than 18% of the total funding. 236 proposals were submitted.
See the list of selected projects here: https://aeur.eu/f/c8i
On 15 March, the European Commission launched a call for tenders under the European Defence Fund 2024, worth a total of €1.1 billion and covering 32 topics. Submissions will be accepted from 20 June to 5 November.
To see the details: https://aeur.eu/f/bcp (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)