The European Commission has announced the funding decisions for the 2024 research and development projects under the European Defence Fund (EDF). VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, one of Europe’s leading technical research organisations, is participating in six projects that have collectively received a total of EUR 218 million from the EU. These projects aim to enhance the EU’s cutting-edge competence in defence technology development in the fields of electronic situational awareness, drone navigation, underwater communication solutions, minesweeping, virtual battlefields and rotorcraft development.
VTT has established itself as an active player in European Defence Fund projects. In addition to this year’s projects, several from the last three years are still ongoing. In total, VTT is developing technologies for 14 different projects.
“VTT will continue its important work of strengthening European defence capabilities by contributing a wide range of expertise to European Defence Fund projects, particularly in the field of digital technologies. This time, we are also involved in several projects developing systems that utilise artificial intelligence,” says Sauli Eloranta, Vice President, Defence at VTT.
Diverse development of defence technologies
The Patria-led AI-WASP project is creating a new type of radio system for electronic warfare in today’s changing combat landscape. The ORDEAL project focuses on building test environments to demonstrate accurate positioning for both individual and swarm drones operating in cluttered and challenging conditions. Meanwhile, the ASTERION project works to enable efficient, robust and secure underwater communication. The EUROSWEEP project is advancing a minesweeping system designed to safeguard large commercial vessels. The BATTLEVERSE project seeks to establish a virtual environment that merges real-world combat settings with their virtual counterparts enhancing mission planning and execution. The ENGRT II project aims to improve Europe’s defence capabilities by developing a new generation of military rotorcrafts by 2030.
Strengthening the European defence industry
In the current round of funding, the European Defence Fund is supporting 62 defence R&D projects in the EU with approximately EUR 1 billion. Along with the international defence and technology company Patria, VTT is the most important Finnish contributor of projects to the European Defence Fund, and the new projects will further strengthen VTT’s position as a developer of defence technologies. In Finland, 11 organisations are participating in 16 different projects.
The European Defence Fund is a programme funded from the EU budget and launched in 2021. The total budget of the fund for 2021–2027 is approximately EUR 8 billion. In a changed geopolitical context, the funded projects will support the innovative development of European defence technologies and strengthen the competitiveness of the European defence industry and its independence from non-European actors. The European Defence Fund is also constantly evolving and, for example, the recent round of funding allowed Ukrainian organisations to participate in projects for the first time.
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