Defence and Security Accelerator – latest funding opportunities

The Defence and Security Accelerator is part of the UK Ministry of Defence and is on a mission to find and fund exploitable innovation to support UK defence and security quickly and effectively, and support UK prosperity. Here’s a summary of our current opportunities:

1) Advancing Less Lethal Weapons - £500k is available to fund the development of innovative technologies that allow law enforcement officers to stop armed/violent offenders with minimal necessary force from distance. The closing date is 15th October and more details are at this link.

2) Innovation Research Call for Explosives and Weapons Detection: £2.8m is available to fund proposals from industry and academia for the screening of people and/or their possessions, goods, vehicles, and buildings and areas. The deadline for Phase 1 proposal submissions is 28 September 2020. More detail here.

3) Market exploration: robotic and autonomous systems (platooning): we're scoping the potential to develop the use of autonomy for logistic convoy operations. This is not a funding opportunity, but a chance for you to get your ideas and systems in front of relevant people within the MOD. Closing date is 29 September 2020. More detail here.

4) As always, our Open Call is available for any proposals that don't fit into the competitions above - details here. If you have ideas and you're not quite sure if/where they fit, you can submit a light-touch "innovation outline" (instructions here) and I'll be touch to discuss. 

Finally, DASA recently published our third Annual Review - it's not just another PDF to trudge through, so worth taking a look! It details how during the year we assessed an average of 3 proposals every day and invested an average of £81 a minute. The South East region generated 111 proposals, of which 36 were funded - so a "success rate" of almost 33%.

Peter Wilkins, DASA’s Innovation Partner for the South East, is happy to discuss any of these opportunities and how your organisation might benefit from DASA funding and support. He can be contacted using the web form at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/contact-a-dasa-innovation-partner.