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First calls of the European Defence Fund (EDF) 

By Esteban Pelayo - Director of EURADA

 

The European Commission is going to launch the first calls of the European Defence Fund before the summer. The programme supports industrial defence research and innovation and capability development projects.

Interesting programme for development agencies 

The European Defence Fund for the period 2021-2027 is going to support military research to bolster military cooperation between companies, research organisations and defence ministries inside the European Union. The defence industry provides high-quality employment based on new technologies and constant innovation. These companies are relevant from the point of view of regional economic development. However, in the past development agencies had difficulties to support with meaningful programmes initiatives related to defence. In some cases, those companies were supported with programmes focused on dual use technologies. 

There are outstanding examples of regional development agencies providing effective support to defence industry. For example Agencia Idea from Andalucia, Bretagne Development Innovation, RDA NordEst Romania, ADI-NA from Nouvelle Aquitaine. All of them are members of EURADA.  

 

Contribution of the defence sector to Regional Development 

The European Commission has published in May 2021 a study on the contribution of the defence sector to Regional Development through the European Structural and Investment Funds. The study showcases how structural funds have supported 972 defence related and dual use projects during the 2014-2020 programming period. 58% of these projects were labelled as dual use, and 42% as sole defence-related. The share of direct support to defence projects was unexpected.  

The funded projects cover a broad range of activities, including research, innovation, technological development, facilities, infrastructure, training, business support, internationalisation and exports, and involve a range of players in the supply chain from major multinational firms to micro-SMEs. The 972 projects identified have a total budget of 1.87 billion euros, of which 1.01 billion euros has been financed by ESIF. The project activities align closely with the policy objectives of the previous and forthcoming 2021-2027 ESIF programming period, indicating that the defence sector can play a significant role in enabling the delivery of these policy objectives through accessing ESIF funding. 

 

Opportunities in the European Development Fund 

The new programme provides a clear support framework with calls for projects that will be managed directly by the European Commission. The projects will be focused on the design fully interoperable and innovative defence technologies of high quality more efficiently, at a lower cost and avoid unnecessary duplication between countries. It will have a clear distintion between research and innovation and the building up of demonstrators to ensure capabilities. 

The programme will support defence SMEs to internationalise their ongoing portfolio of technological partners and clients. This fact will be extremely interesting in those countries with less developed defence industries. The Fund is going to support project and to include new entities in cooperation networks and supply chains, profiting better the EU critical mass, including those that have not been active in this industry until now. 

 

Development Agencies could improve their support to defence industries 

EURADA is committed to provide support to the widest range of development agencies and their stakeholders. Despite almost each region in the EU have companies focused on defence industry, for many of the regional economic practitioners is still challenging to provide support to those companies. In close cooperation with the EC services that are managing the fund, we are going to promote the opportunities of the calls that are about to be published in the next weeks, organise events and provide advice to facilitate the participation of SMEs in these calls and in other actions such as the use of European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF), the European Network of Defence Related Regions (ENDR) or any SME support programmes.  

EURADA is going to organise an open practical workshop on September 9th 2021; to learn from the European Defence Fund managers and exchange experiences of promotion of defence industry by regional development agencies. 

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