It took place in Glasgow, Scotland at 200, St Vincent Street,9:30am to 4:30pm. The event was held in partnership with the Encompass programme.

Head of CDE, Andy Nicholson, introduced CDE and gave an overview of proof-of-concept research funding opportunities for innovative science and technology providers. View the presentation slides.

CDE launched themed competitions for fully funded contracts on:

• synthetic biology applications in defence (up to £1 million available). View the presentation slides.
• defence medical sciences (up to £500,000 available). View the presentation slides.

Neal Smith, Capability Advisor from Dstl has given an interview to Research Professional discussing this competition. The interview is available here:
MOD seeks punchy proposals for medical science
(PDF, 173KB, 5 pages)

In addition, Military Advisers and technical experts from Dstl (the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory) gave an overview of some areas where innovative research ideas are sought for CDE’s ongoing enduring challenge competition. View the presentation slides.

Bruce Hardie, CDE’s Technology Manager, talked about how to create an effective proposal for CDE funding. View the presentation slides.

Daniel Selman from MOD, briefed on the new Cyber Security Model and there will be opportunities to discuss the model with him and provide your feedback.

Under direction from the Secretary of State for Defence and the Defence Suppliers’ Forum, MOD will introduce the requirement for contractual compliance to a new cyber security framework, known as the Cyber Security Model, from next year.

The Cyber Security Model is being introduced to ensure that adequate levels of protection are applied to data and information generated from work placed through MOD contracts.

The model includes question sets which can be used to establish the maturity of a company’s approach to cyber security and we would like to give those attending the CDE Innovation Network event an early sight of these questions. The aim of this is to ensure they are understandable, meaningful and applicable to defence small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This is a unique opportunity to influence government policy that will affect all of the defence supply chain in the near future, so please provide as much feedback as possible. View the presentation slides.

About CDE

CDE funds novel, high-risk, high-potential-benefit research. We work with the broadest possible range of science and technology providers, including academia and small companies, to develop cost-effective capabilities for UK armed forces and national security.

CDE is part of Dstl.