As you all know, we’ve been keeping an eye on the changing policy environment both in Canada and internationally for university research related to defence, security, and sovereignty in this new post-postwar world. Today, we thought we would share a little bit about the changes we are seeing and how they may end up at least to some extent shaking up some traditional research excellence hierarchies.
One of the keys here, it seems to us, is that whereas traditional defence manufacturing is mostly located in traditional industrial locations/facilities, defence tech in Europe is expanding in locations with deep tech-talent pools, access to scale-up capital, strong support networks, and business friendly regulations. If you’ve been following the war in Ukraine at all, it’s easy to understand why this is the case: quite simply, big armoured vehicles, which have been central to the conduct of land warfare for about a century now, are quite simply no longer a factor on the battlefield. Instead, the new battlefield is largely about drones and sensors, which require a whole lot less capital investment to get started. The role of industrial regions (e.g. northern Italy, Bavaria) and military logistics nodes (e.g. Antwerp, Rzezow, etc.) in R&D and testing won’t go away, but a new emphasis on providing funding to start-ups gives regions with strong concentrations of venture capital and research activity the ability a chance to get in this game. This represents a significant opportunity for new players in the sense that any towards funding startups and accelerators potentially distributes R&D and its funding away from traditional hubs.
Another common theme we are seeing across countries is that national defence industrial strategies may be big on R&D as a concept, but usually stop well short of considering the role of post-secondary institutions in that R&D ecosystem or how to integrate them with industry and military (something that is definitely the case in Canada). One interesting exception here is a new initiative from the British Ministry of Defence, which has created its own Defence Universities Alliance. This alliance is meant to have three strategic aims:
- Advancing defence and national security research and development, enabling HE sector to become global leader in defence innovation
- Skills and career promotion – twofold: equipping/skilling current students for career, and encouraging skilled graduates to pursue careers in defence sector
- Collaboration – fostering partnerships between gov, academic, and industry
However, at least to start, universities can’t simply join this alliance at will. Rather, institutions have to apply to join and then the Ministry gets to pick who the initial 20 members will be, which is a pretty interesting power move on the MOD’s part. It’s worth following how this one will play out.
Of course, not everyone is especially happy about the turn to security-related spending. As in Canada, many faculty in Europe and especially Japan are deeply skeptical about the ethical element of reversing decades of policy on the separation of civil and military R&D. In Europe, ETH Zurich has been particularly active in pushing the notion that is that all research is effectively “dual-use” and so a rising tide in this area really lifts all boats. Painting national security research as “dual-use” has been a major element of the Japanese government’s positioning as well.
Another strategy that many countries are turning to on defence is international partnerships. This can be very helpful in smaller countries, which may need either foreign know-how or (more likely) foreign investment money. Japan and Germany in particular seem to be heading in that direction (for historical reasons both prefer to keep their military activities anchored firmly in multi-lateral efforts), and there are lots of ways that this kind of research can be funded, such as the European Defence Fund or NATO DIANA. In practice, though, international collaboration can be difficult because not all countries have the same rules around research security.
(Just last month, for instance, when I was with the University Vice-Presidents’ Network in Germany, we were hosted for an afternoon by colleagues from the University of the Bundeswehr just outside Munich. We were well into a discussion about research and collaboration when our hosts just kind of casually dropped the phrase “of course, for most research we only allow German citizens’ to work in the laboratories…we cannot allow non-nationals for security purposes”. There followed a long silence as the Canadians, whose STEM labs of course are simply packed with international students, absorbed the implications of this.)
A final closer-to-home initiative is worth a note, and that is Alberta’s new DEFENDS (Dual-Use Ecosystem for Future Engineering, National Defence and Sovereignty) Initiative. Launched in March with an investment of about $20 million and housed at the University of Alberta, DEFENDS creates an environment where innovators and industries in Alberta – and across Canada – can connect with the Canadian Armed Forces, turning ideas into real capabilities. This will accelerate the pace at which existing manufacturers, fabrication shops and technology firms can transform their expertise and products into dual-use innovations – products with both civilian and military applications. The idea here is not so much that DEFENDS acts as a laboratory but rather as a research/innovation an ecosystem coordinator that taps into strengths of various communities around Alberta (although, let’s face it, this all requires secure testing spaces and some of that requires facilities that only U of A possesses, so it might not all be about ecosystems). Key focus domains are i) Advance electronics and intelligent sensing, ii) Emerging space and aerospace technologies, and iii) Next gen uncrewed systems and platforms. It seems likely that this kind of investment will attract federal funding too, meaning there may be more paydays down the road for the University of Alberta. Expect this to be a bit of a cottage industry for the next year or two as every province tries to work out how to spend their own money in a way that can leverage federal dollars as well.
We’ve barely even scratched the surface of what’s going on in the world – we’re especially intrigued by how South Korea seems to have managed to foster partnerships between universities and the defence industry, a topic we will no doubt return to in the fall. And finally: the HESA Towers team is cooking up some exciting new projects to be launched in the coming months, in collaboration with leaders in the post-secondary defence space. While we can’t share the details just yet, we look forward to telling you more about this initiative very soon. Stay tuned!
