NATO’s DIANA programme offers Hungary new opportunities in defence and security issues
Text: Ministry of Defence | Photo: archive photos by Gábor Nagy | 14:31 June 20, 2023On 19 June, the NATO Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) network launched its first Challenge Programme, a call for proposals to solve critical defence and security challenges. This call for proposals is for innovators who wish to develop large-scale, dual-use – military and civilian – technological ideas and solutions to tackle today’s critical defence and security problems.
The best and brightest innovators chosen by DIANA will get significant early-stage funding and commercial advice, as well as the opportunity to access DIANA’s accelerator programme and to test their ideas at some of the world’s leading facilities in Europe and North America. DIANA has a network of around 100 accelerator sites and test centers, which has been expressly designed to bring together academia, industry and governments to work with start-ups and other innovators and provide them with access to end users, scientists and system integrators to promote the development of dual-use deep technologies, thereby offering solutions to the most urgent global security and defence challenges.
In 2023, DIANA’s call for proposals to tackle challenges targets three focus areas:
1) Energy Resilience: resilient energy solutions in the aftermath of natural disasters or in conflict zones
2) Secure Information Sharing: trusted exchange of information
3) Sensing and Surveillance: information gathering, undersea infrastructure monitoring.
DIANA’s objective is to support innovators in developing dual-use technologies that simultaneously enhance defence capability and strengthen civil society, giving radical and progressive responses to the dynamic and complex security challenges of today and tomorrow.
Hungary has also committed itself to the ambitious goals of NATO’s DIANA programme. At its December 2022 meeting, the Board of Directors of NATO DIANA elected its Vice Chair a Hungarian candidate, Brigadier General Dr. Imre Porkoláb, Ministerial Commissioner for Defense Innovation, Ministry of Defence of Hungary. In Hungary, the Defense Innovation Research Institute Nonprofit Ltd coordinates the tasks related to the DIANA challenges.
Press release of the Ministry of Defence
