September Round up of Events

This past month has seen the normal high tempo of activity for the UK Defence Solutions Centre (UKDSC) as we continue to make progress across our three strategic pillars.

Focus on the Customer

New UKDSC Associates continue to be inducted and we engaged with Ultra Electronics Ltd, University of Southampton and Cranfield University. The UKDSC also welcomed the opportunity to engage with colleagues from Airbus and Thales to review our key work streams and progress to date across our portfolio. The Market Intelligence Cell (MIC) is making excellent progress on the Market Intelligence Phase II Country Analysis work in preparation for an industry / government workshop to be held on the 17^th October that will evaluate further international market potential. In addition, the MIC has undertaken a review of specific maritime capabilities.

Develop Capability

The Communities of Interest (CoI) continue to grow, with seven new companies joining. This has augmented our continuing work on developing the capability landscapes, with three CoI workshops well supported by all companies this month. In preparation for the Unmanned Warrior ‘16 event the Centre for Maritime Intelligence Systems (CMIS) team are working with the Royal Navy to create the modelling and synthetic environment ready for VIP visitor days.

Improve Value of Investment

There have also been three external events that were well supported by the UKDSC team. On the 6^th September, we participated at the Centre for Defence Enterprise (CDE) Marketplace event in London. This event, opened by Harriett Baldwin MP, the Minister for Defence Procurement, featured winners of the autonomy and big data competition we had co-sponsored with CDE. Steve Brittan, UKDSC CEO, said “I am delighted that we continue to demonstrate how the UKDSC and MoD are delivering an innovation programme with exploitable and exportable outputs.

Building on the partnership which we have built with the CDE, this past month the UKDSC has also supported the launch of the Defence Innovation Initiative. The UKDSC had a thematic area with CDE and Close Air Support (one of the Innovation Challenge winners) where we had the opportunity to present the partnership and beneficial outcomes with the Secretary of State for Defence and the Minister for Defence Procurement.

(Hyper-reality training tech developed by Close Air Solutions. Copyright MOD/Close Air Solutions)

Last week the UKDSC participated at SPIE’s co-located Remote Sensing and Security Defence Event in Edinburgh which was well attended by some of the world’s foremost research organisations and companies. Nearly 1000 participants and over 40 companies attended the annual meeting to learn about the latest research developments, see state-of-the-art-products and engage with many of the field’s most prominent organisations, institutes and companies.

Sir Brian Burridge (Leonardo and UKDSC) was one of the keynote presenters in an industry session, supported by Andrew Cunningham (Innovation, UKDSC) and organised by Paul Winstanley (Innovation, UKDSC) and Stephen Anderson (SPIE). Sir Brian Burridge provided a perspective on the industry’s ability to be agile and commercially successful with technologies for Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR).

Please click the below link to read the full SPIE article.

http://spie.org/about-spie/press-room/press-releases/record-setting-week-as-industry-research-communities-gather-at-spie-remote-sensing-and-security-and-defence-4-oct-2016