Given the magnitude of the task and the shortage of research funding at national levels, Member States are rightly seeking synergies and cost benefits from collaborative projects at European level, notably through EDA.
To ensure the identification of technology gaps and common areas of interest for cooperation, the Overarching Strategic Research Agenda (OSRA), the EDA R&T planning tool ), developed together with its Member States, provides a shared vision of the most important technical challenges to be researched at European level within the CapTech areas.
With its specialized Capability Technology Groups (‘CapTechs’) composed of national experts, industry and research organisations, EDA offers Member States a tailor-made platform where they can voluntarily engage in collaborative defence research projects which are of interest to them. Since its creation in 2004, EDA has managed some 250 R&T projects, worth over €1 billion.
EDA also ensures that Member States make best use of existing and upcoming EU funding for defence-related research, especially the European Commission’s Preparatory Action on Defence Research (PADR) which is managed by EDA, and provides inputs to a fully-fledged EU Defence Research Programme under the European Defence Fund (EDF) as of 2021.