On Friday 11 July in Rome, the European Commissioner for Defence, Andrius Kubilius, and the Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister for Innovation, Education, Science and Technology Development, Mykhailo Fedorov, presented the BraveTech EU initiative, “aimed at accelerating defence innovation through closer cooperation”, according to the Commission.
“The aim of the joint initiative is to create possibilities for European defence industry from Ukrainian battle-tested experience, how to do defence innovations. This initiative is targeting to help Ukrainian very dynamic and innovative defence industry to scale the innovations using European Union defence industrial potential”, summarised Mr Kubilius before the media.
The initiative connects the Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation BRAVE 1 defence technology platform with European programmes such as the European Defence Fund (EDF) and the EU Defence Innovation Scheme (EUDIS).
BraveTech EU will be implemented in two phases. The first, seed phase will begin in autumn 2025. It will build on existing EDF activities and enhance collaboration with Ukraine’s defence innovation ecosystem.
Actions include Ukraine-focused defence ‘hackathons’, matchmaking between Ukrainian and European firms and investors, R&D funding for European and Ukrainian start-ups, and testing opportunities to support technology development in Ukraine for European defence companies.
The second, scale up phase will expand seed phase actions, using additional resources from the EDF and the Ukraine Support Instrument (USI) under the upcoming European Defence Industrial Programme (EDIP). These activities will focus on integrating Ukrainian start-ups and scale-ups into the EUDIS Business Accelerator along with European companies, obtaining potential grants and equity support, and technology development.
The initial activities under Brave Tech EU will be supported by the European Defence Fund up to €50 million. The EU Defence Innovation Office in Kyiv will support the implementation of the initiative. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)