This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission.
Today, the Commission has adopted the fifth annual Work Programme under the European Defence Fund (EDF), allocating over €1 billion to defence collaborative research and development projects.
With the 2025 EDF Work Programme, the Commission unlocks significant additional funding to support the development of critical defence technologies and capabilities. The Work Programme allocates around €100 million each in critical fields such as ground combat, space, air and naval combat, as well as energy resilience and environmental transition.
Supporting European collaborative defence R&D projects
The EDF25 Work Programme supports the development of critical defence technologies and capabilities required in line with the EU capability priorities agreed by Member States and further elaborated in the Strategic Compass. It launches 9 competitive calls for proposals addressing 31 topics (more information in a factsheet). This includes 15 topics to support research actions, 15 topics to support development actions and 1 topic in support of the EDF National Focal Points network. 14 of the proposed call topics support the objectives of the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) in the field of digital technologies and deep-tech innovation, clean and resource-efficient technologies and biotechnologies. Projects meeting the eligibility requirements of this call will be awarded a STEP Seal. In addition, 2 specific grant agreements will further support the Alliance for defence medical countermeasures.
A budget of around or more than €100 million addresses future challenges in the fields of ground combat, space, air combat and energy resilience and environmental transition. Furthermore, more than €40 million of EU funding is allocated to R&D efforts in critical areas in the current and future operational context, such as cyber, naval combat, underwater warfare, simulation and training, advanced passive and active sensors.
Calls for proposals will prepare the ground for a wide range of enabling technologies related to autonomous triage and evacuation of injured personnel, multifunctional information distribution system, human-AI dialogue, chiplets for defence applications, soldier systems, and great-depth enabling technologies.
4% of the EDF 2025 budget is dedicated to a call addressing disruptive technologies. In addition, around 6% is devoted to two non-thematic calls on innovative and future defence solutions, inviting specifically SMEs to apply for research and development actions.
Calls for proposals are expected to be opened for submission in mid-February 2025, with a deadline for submission of 16 October 2025.
Supporting European Defence Tech Innovation
The EDF 2025 Work Programme continues the support to defence innovation through the EU Defence Innovation Scheme (EUDIS), providing grants and services for start-ups, scale-ups, SMEs, research & technology organisations, accelerators and other non-traditional actors to help them overcome defence market entry barriers, bring ideas to the market and make a difference to EU security and defence.
The Work Programme includes a technological challenge in the field of artificial intelligence, and R&D calls to promote synergies between civil and defence innovation focusing this year on space, energy resilience, ground combat and cyber. This year’s focus is on technologies supporting ground combat and force protection capabilities. For the first time, Ukrainian entities will be eligible to receive acceleration support as third parties in this type of calls. Non-thematic calls for proposals, open exclusively to SMEs or SMEs together with research organisations, are also supported under the Work Programme.
In addition to R&D grants, the 2025 round will fund innovation support activities. This includes the 2nd edition of the EUDIS Defence Hackathon, which will take place on 9-11 May 2025 in eight different EU locations and focus on creating innovative hardware and software solutions tailored to the urgent needs of the Ukrainian battlefield and similar operational contexts.
Background
The European Defence Fund, with a budget of around €7.3 billion for the period 2021-27, is the Commission’s instrument for supporting collaborative defence R&D. Without substituting Member States’ efforts, it promotes cooperation between companies of all sizes and research actors throughout the EU and Norway (as associated country).
The EDF supports competitive and collaborative defence projects throughout the entire cycle of research and development, focusing on projects leading to state-of-the-art and interoperable defence technologies and equipment. It also fosters innovation and incentivises the cross-border participation of SMEs.
With the adoption of the 2025 Work Programme, the Commission has committed €5.4 billion since the entry into force of the EDF Regulation in May 2021, becoming one of the top investors in defence R&D. It also contains several measures to further support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and mid-caps under the EU Defence Innovation Scheme (EUDIS).
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