RSTI in the “Evolution of Defense R & D in the 2020 horizon” summer school

Research and Development activities are essential to develop concepts and technologies that serve as the basis for the design of advanced weapons systems. All developed countries aim to have sophisticated weapons systems increasing their efforts in technological development and multi-annual procurement programs in some cases as a result of a joint effort of several countries.

The activity of R & D in the field of Defense and Security in Spain is carried out through the bodies dependent on the Ministry of Defense (mainly at INTA as a public research organization), other IPOs that are dependent on ministerial departments of the General Administration of the State, the Autonomous Communities, Universities, or of the industry of the Defense sector.
In many cases these actors cooperate for the development of R & D projects financed through the State Plan for Research, Development and Technological Innovation (COINCIDENTE program) or the research and innovation framework programs of the European Union (currently H2020) oriented to dual technologies.

Additionally, the European Commission has started the development of the Defense R & D Preparatory Action and the discussion for the creation of a specific program from 2020 within the next financial perspective period. This process is being carried out in parallel with the beginning of the negotiation on the next EU research and innovation framework program called FP9 initially.

Specifically, the summer course of this year will allow to know the strategic lines of R & D and some advanced emblematic projects of the Ministry of Defense as well as other Spanish public and private organizations related to Defense technology. Likewise, opportunities derived from the growing involvement of the EU in the field of Defense may be known and debated.

The course will be financed through the General Engineer Chair D. Antonio Remón and Zarco de Valle through the agreement of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) and the Center for National Defense Studies (CESEDEN) of the Ministry of Defense.

The RSTI Group has participated in this conference with a presentation by Prof. Julio Berrocal, entitled “R & D in cybersecurity and cyberdefense: cooperation of the UPM” where recent R&D projects developed in the context of Spanish and European Programmes were outlined. The technological fields of these projects include Cyber Situational Awareness, Machine Learning, Virtualization and Data Analytics.