Summary of Current DASA Funding

1) Our "Uncrewed Underwater Vehicle Testbed" competition closes for one-page initial pitches at 1200hrs TODAY (8th March) - probably a bit late notice if you're not already aware, but didn't want to leave it out. If you have innovative sensors and payloads that we could trial on an Extra-Large, Uncrewed, Underwater Vehicle (XLUUV) then perhaps you might still have time to write a page and fire it in before lunchtime. More detail here.

2) Through our "Map the Gap" competition, we're looking for ideas that might help soldiers survey river crossing points without exposing themselves to risk or giving away information about their plans. Again, there's a lot more detail in the competition document - the closing date for this one is 9th March - that's tomorrow!

3) Under our recently-launched "Right on Time" competition we have £800k available to identify, develop, and demonstrate innovations that have the potential to deliver a step change in military logistics capability across the Maritime, Land and Air domains. The closing date for entries is 25th March.

4) Our "Wireless communications, Networking and Information Theory Challenge" is looking for innovative technologies to deliver information exchange capabilities that are resilient in a highly dynamic operating environment where there are significant challenges from congestion and contention (e.g. jamming). The deadline for this one is 7th April.

5) It's probably worth mentioning the new Innovation Focus Area that we've recently opened within our Open Call. This focusses on novel ways to get armoured vehicles (up to 40 tonnes) across 4m gaps. More detail here. We're planning to close this focus area at the end of Cycle 1 FY2021/22 - that's 26th May.

6) The current cycle of our Open Call closes at midday on 31st March. This is the mechanism for suppliers to push innovative proposals into DASA for us to assess for funding. We run one stream for higher-maturity innovation and another (which is temporarily closed, but speak to me for details) for lower-maturity innovations. See the website for a lot more detail, and let me know if you'd like to talk through the process. If you're not sure whether your innovation fits, you can test the water by submitting an Innovation Outline here and I'll be in touch to discuss.

I think that's all for now - again, happy to discuss any of these. We'll be at the Security and Policing virtual exhibition this week, so come and see us on our stand if you're there.