Notice

Competition Document: Innovation in Support of Operations Phase 2 (Cycle 4)

Published 1 April 2025

1. Introduction

This Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) competition is looking for innovative proposals that are cost competitive, designed for manufacture, and can be scaled in an approximate twelve-month timeframe.

This is phase two of a multi-cycle competition. This phase is expected to consist of three Cycles (Cycles 4, 5 and 6).  Proposals submitted by the cycle deadline will follow the DASA “How your proposal will be assessed” process with contracting immediately afterwards for successful proposals.

DASA reserves the right to change challenge areas between cycles, or to close the competition without launching subsequent cycles.

Further to this multiple cycle DASA competition, outputs from funded projects may be considered for further development or procurement, subject to contract. In this circumstance the Authority (Secretary of State for Defence, acting on behalf of the Crown) will undertake appropriate procurement activity to ensure value for money and subject to any applicable Regulations that may pertain.

2. Competition key information

Total Funding Available	We are expecting proposals to cost no more than £350,000. A number of proposals may be funded. We expect total funding across cycles 4, 5 and 6 to be £4 Million (excluding VAT)
Technology Readiness Level (TRL)	Reach TRL 6 by the end of the project
Project duration	Equal to or less than four months from the project start date. With the exception of Challenge 2 – 155mm Artillery Barrel Repair/Recondition, which is equal to or less than six months from the project start date.
Cyber Risk Assessment (CRA) number and risk level	RAR-240619B04, Very Low Risk
Pre-sift criteria	See Section 8 Pre-sift Criteria

Cycle specific	Cycle 4	Cycle 5	Cycle 6
Submission Deadline	12:00 Midday on 20 May 2025 (BST)	12:00 Midday on 5 August 2025 (BST)	12:00 Midday on 14 October 2025 (BST)
Contract start month	September 2025	December 2025	February 2026
Feedback release date	July 2025	October 2025	December 2025

2.1 Competition Specific Requirements

Please note that this competition has specific deliverables as part of its pre-sift criteria. Only those proposals that demonstrate compliance with the DASA pre-sift criteria will be taken forward to full assessment. For the full list of criteria, please see Section 8.

• the final deliverable month indicated must be less than or equal to 4 months (6 months for Challenge 2) from the project start date agreed by both parties.

• the proposal output must reach TRL 6 at the end of the agreed project. Please refer to the TRL guide.

• you will be required to conduct demonstrations in the UK for the MOD customer. These demonstrations must be self-supporting and are not to require MOD assets or support to deliver.

• your proposal must detail any overseas supply chain dependencies and the risk if disrupted which would impact the ability to deliver your proposed solution at scale, and if appropriate how these dependencies could be mitigated.

• all innovators must ensure that they can obtain, if required, the necessary export licences for their proposals and developments, such that they can deliver to TRL6 demonstration timelines and be supplied to the UK and other countries.

• to be eligible to submit a proposal into this competition you must be a UK business registered at Companies House. You must be based in the UK and intending to carry out project development activity in the UK.

2.2 Where do I submit my proposal?

Via the DASA Online Submission Service where you will need to register for an account. Only proposals submitted through the DASA Online Submission Service will be accepted.

It is recommended you thoroughly check the mandatory criteria for this competition before you submit your proposal.

You must not submit any information classified above Official.

2.3 Public facing information

When submitting your proposal, you will be required to include a title, Proposal Value Proposition Statement (PVPS) and a short abstract. The title, PVPS and abstract you provide will be used by DASA, and Partners Across Government (PAG), to describe your project and its intended outcomes and benefits. They may be included at DASA events in relation to this competition and in documentation such as brochures. As this information can be shared, it should not contain information that may compromise Intellectual Property.

All suppliers are prohibited from creating press releases/social media posts and publicly accessible blogs/corporate blogs/enterprise blogs and company blogs or releases to any other information outlet that details the works of any contract that they are bidding for, or are contracted to complete, unless and until they have written approval from DASA and our partners.

2.4 Further guidance

For further guidance on what to expect during the submission process and how your proposal will be assessed, please see the following GOV.UK pages and forms:

• Submit a proposal
• Assessment process and criteria
• Defence and Security Accelerator: ethical, legal, and regulatory guidance
• MODREC Guidance for Suppliers
• Competition Terms and Conditions
• DASA Standard Terms and Conditions
• Supplier Assurance Questionnaire (SAQ)
• How to get in touch with your local Innovation Partner

3. Support Opportunities

3.1  Innovation Outline

If you are uncertain of the relevance of your innovation, it is strongly recommended that you contact your local DASA Innovation Partner to discuss your idea. You can initiate this through the submission of a Contact DASA Form by following instructions on the Contact a DASA Innovation Partner page if you do not already have an established relationship with your local Innovation Partner.

Your local Innovation Partner will initially explore the suitability of your idea within the context of the requirements of the competition. With specific interest in the aspects covered within the Competition Scope section.

Your local Innovation Partner will, if required, also advise you on the submission of an Innovation Outline (IO), primarily used to further explore the relevance of your idea to the competition.

You must submit this IO through the Submission Service regardless of an established relationship with your local Innovation Partner. To submit an IO, log in to the submission service, select the service category DASA Innovation Outline. Then from the service name select Innovation Outline: Innovation in Support of Operations. Your local Innovation Partner will be able to advise you on the IO content.

Submission of an IO for this competition will allow socialisation of the idea across the competition team, all elements of the IO will be shared. The competition team is made up of DASA, Dstl and MOD staff. You should receive a response within two weeks, confirming whether or not your idea is in scope. The final cycle of this competition closes at 12:00 Midday on 14 Oct 2025 (BST). DASA cannot guarantee a response to any IO received after 01 October 2025.

All information you provide to us as part of your IO, that is not already available to us from other sources, will be handled in confidence. We will only share the information with those who can establish if your innovation is within scope of the competition. The information will only be used for the purposes for which it is provided to us. It won’t be used for other purposes, without us having obtained the necessary rights and permissions to do so.

Submitting an IO or speaking to your local innovation partner is not a mandatory criteria of this competition.

3.2 Industry collaboration survey during proposal preparation

We encourage collaboration between organisations for this competition. To support this, we have a short survey to collect details of those who wish to explore collaboration possibilities.

If you are interested in a collaboration, please complete the supplier collaboration survey and your details (including your business email address) may be circulated among other potential suppliers who have completed the survey and are interested in collaborating.

The sharing of details will only be done after an initial screening process has taken place; we reserve the right to not share all details.

If you choose to complete the supplier collaboration survey, please be aware all the information you submit in the survey may be provided to other suppliers who also complete the survey. All industry collaboration for proposal submissions is on an industry-industry basis.

4. Competition scope

4.1 Background: Why we need Innovation in this area

The UK Government continuously evaluates insights from global events, to rapidly implement solutions that strengthen military and economic advantage.

This competition aims to identify and accelerate innovative solutions and techniques, ensuring they can be scaled and deployed faster than our adversaries.

4.2 Scope: The Requirement

Our areas of interest are: 

• UAS Propulsion
• Repair of 155mm Artillery barrels
• Autonomous navigation systems for UAS and USVs
• Seekers
• UAS detect and destroy

DASA reserves the right to change challenge areas between cycles.

These challenges are designed to identify innovations that could be deployed, at an appropriate scale, in operational areas within 12 months.

It is therefore essential that proposals include not just what is proposed, but also demonstrate that viable solutions could be manufactured and scaled up for deployment in a relevant timeframe.

4.3 Exploitation

For DASA to consider routes for exploitation, ensure your deliverables are designed with the aim of making it as easy as possible for collaborators/stakeholders to identify the innovative elements of your proposal.

Innovators must ensure that their proposal offers sufficient information for the Authority (Secretary of State for Defence, acting on behalf of the Crown) to enable exploitation of it via possible future phases of procurement.

All proposals to DASA should articulate the expected development in technology maturity of the potential solution over the lifetime of the project and how this relates to improved capability against the current known (or presumed) baseline.

Following demonstration and project completion, the project will either be allocated to a further development or procurement route or cease as no longer required.

If, following completion, a project is selected for further development or procurement then additional or alternative DEFCONs and/or clauses may likely apply to any future contract.

5. Competition challenges

This competition has five challenges. As well as brand new innovations, this competition welcomes proposals that outline an innovative approach to reusing existing products, which may not yet have been tested for these purposes, but which it is expected could be successfully applied to these challenges.

For all challenge areas, we are seeking to identify solutions and techniques that can be accelerated into scalable and deliverable effect faster than our adversaries at market leading prices.

5.1 Challenge 1 – UAS Propulsion

Propulsion is a critical module for a UAS structure.  Propulsion provides the necessary thrust to maintain a flight.  UAS effectiveness, performance, and utility depend on the onboard propulsion capabilities. 

Evidence from recent conflicts has shown that UAS have increasingly moved from being exquisite platforms to highly attritable where they may only survive a few sorties or be employed as one-way effectors. High attrition rates of >10,000 per month have been experienced and are indicative of the rate at which replacements may be required.

If the MOD is to take advantage of this game-changing capability, it needs industry to be able to supply engines at a rate equal to or greater than the attrition rate. Industry needs to be able to rapidly expand their manufacturing and assembly capacity to meet this demand and surge capacity.

In this challenge area we are looking for:

1. Novel means of propulsion for small to medium UAS.
2. Novel means of manufacture/design of traditional UAS engines for small to medium UAS to increase scale of manufacture at a market leading price.

We are not looking for the UAS platforms themselves, but you will need to demonstrate your solution on a representative platform.

Our primary focus is on UAS Classes between I(d) and III, in accordance with the NATO classification scheme (below):

NATO UAS Class	Maximum Take off Weight	Common Taxonomy
I(a)	<200g	Nano
I(b)	200g to 2kg	Micro
I(c)	2kg to 20kg	Mini
I(d)	20kg to 150kg	Small
II	150kg to 600kg	Tactical
III	>600kg	M/H ALE

We are seeking solutions that can generate approximately 2.5kN and above.

Projects addressing this challenge area can be up to 4 months in duration and will be required to achieve and demonstrate TRL 6 at the end of the project.

5.2 Challenge 2 – 155mm Artillery Barrel Repair/Recondition

Ammunition expenditure seen in recent conflicts has shown that 155mm artillery barrels may be required to continue in use beyond their designed number of firings, with increased wear to those barrels.  This potentially impacts weapon performance and safety over time.  We are looking for innovative solutions to repair, recondition and extend barrel life under these conditions. 

Projects addressing this challenge area can be up to 6 months in duration and will be required to achieve and demonstrate TRL 6 at the end of the project.

5.3 Challenge 3 - Autonomous navigation systems

Current trends show that in future, conflicts may depend on easy to use, affordable, and modular or adaptable autonomous or semi-autonomous systems.  An autonomous platform must be able to navigate to its destination despite challenges such as an unreliable Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signal and electro-magnetic interference. 

In this challenge we are seeking autonomous navigation systems for air vehicles and/or maritime surface vessels.

Systems will be evaluated against cost and capability of current systems.  All systems must be able to operate in a GNSS-denied environment and determine own position without manual input to within 50m accuracy minimum, with an objective accuracy of 5m.    

Air vehicle solutions must be able to interface with industry standard architecture and will require to be proven over land or a combination of land and water with a stretch target of open water.

All systems should be able to operate in all weathers, both day and night. 

Projects addressing this challenge area can be up to 4 months in duration and will be required to achieve and demonstrate TRL 6 at the end of the project.

5.4 Challenge 4: Seekers

A seeker is a sensor that detects and tracks a target and directs a projectile or similar system (such as a drone) towards it. We are looking for novel systems directed against:

• RF transmitters at frequencies ranging from 200 MHz to 40 GHz
• Class I(d), Class II and Class III UAS
• medium to large maritime surface targets.

Solutions to lines 1 and 2 would likely be employed in UAS.  Solutions to Line 3 could be employed in UAS or maritime platform.  It is recognised that utilisation in a maritime platform may allow support for a greater size, weight, and power requirement. 

Projects addressing this challenge area can be up to 4 months in duration and will be required to achieve and demonstrate TRL 6 at the end of the project.

5.5 Challenge 5: UAS defeat

This challenge relates to the ability to:

1. Detect UAS: We are seeking solutions to detect (and potentially defeat) UAS, including those that are not reliant on RF links.  For example, recent conflicts have seen the use of UAS that communicate via fibre optic links. These are difficult to detect and jam.

2. Destroy UAS: We are looking for novel solutions to destroy UAVs around the Class I(d) size, once detected.  Solutions should consider that multiple UAS targets may present (swarm), and we are looking for solutions able to rapidly engage multiple targets without requiring significant time to reload. For clarity, the definition of destroy is to damage a target to such an extent that it is unable to fulfil its intended function without being reconstituted or entirely rebuilt.

Solutions proposed must be as self-contained and low impact to use as possible, placing particular emphasis on the protection and vulnerability of any users of the solution.

Projects addressing this challenge area can be up to 4 months in duration and will be required to achieve and demonstrate TRL 6 at the end of the project.

5.6 We are interested in proposals that evidence:

• how competitive market-leading unit pricing and scalable manufacture is built into the proposal from the outset, clearly benchmarked against existing market solutions or closest substitute capabilities and how both the output and the manufacturing techniques can be demonstrated within the timeframe of the project.

• innovation or a creative approach.
• clear demonstration of how the proposed work applies to a defence and security context, and how it can be exploited in phases of development beyond this DASA competition.

5.7 We are not interested in proposals that:

• cannot achieve TRL 6 within the project period.

• have already been sold into the UK Defence Marketplace, unless adapted or repurposed in an innovative way and this is made clear in your proposal.

• are UAV Platforms.

• rely on rare or exclusive means of manufacture that would preclude deployment at an appropriate scale in an operational theatre within 12 months – the ability to exercise existing industry is likely to be important .

• constitute consultancy, paper-based studies or literature reviews which just summarise the existing literature without any view of future innovation

• are an unsolicited resubmission.

• offer demonstrations of off-the-shelf products requiring no experimental development (unless applied in a novel way to the challenge).

• offer no real long-term prospect of integration into defence and security capabilities.

• offer no real prospect of out-competing existing technological solutions in price, while maintaining enough performance to be relevant.

6. Critical elements to include

When writing your proposal, ensure you have comprehensively covered the following elements:

• focus on the Competition requirements to deliver to a TRL 6 demonstration at the end of the project.

• the proposal should demonstrate how it can be scaled to deliver at an appropriate scale in an operational theatre within 12 months. Measurable information on planned quantities, costs and timescales should be utilised to demonstrate scalability.

• all proposed milestones for delivery of your proposal must be costed, with a clear breakdown of allocated costs.

• your proposal must demonstrate how you will complete all activities/services and provide all deliverables within the competition timescales. Proposals with any deliverables (including final report) outside the competition timeline will be rejected as non-compliant.

• include a list of other government funding you have received in this area. Make it clear how this proposal differs from that work.

• include a detailed project plan with clear milestones and deliverables. Deliverables need to be well defined and designed to provide evidence of progress against the project plan. Your deliverables must include a written final report and an in person demonstration.

• plan (and cost) for attendance at the following meetings, which will all be in the UK. Meetings may take place virtually. Slides presented at these meetings should be marked with the correct classification and made available.

    - a kick-off meeting at the start of the project

    - an end of project in person demonstration

    - fortnightly reviews with the appointed Technical Partner and Project Manager

    - close down meeting at the end of the project

• identify any ethical / legal / regulatory factors. Associated risks should be added to the Risk Register in Step 5 of the submission service along with details of how they will be managed, including break points in the project if approvals are not received.

7. Accelerating and exploiting your innovation

Ensure your deliverables are designed with the aim of making it as easy as possible for assessors to recognise expected development in technology maturity of the potential solution over the lifetime of the project. Specifically, how this demonstrates improved capability against the current known (or presumed) solutions.

Over the lifetime of DASA awarded projects, ideas may develop, mature and accelerate under the guidance of appropriate stakeholders, toward being functional capabilities. The duration and extent of this will depend on end-user need and assessment of project potential. How long this takes, and how far towards a deployable capability the innovations progress, will depend on any future exploitation after the completion of the DASA project. 

7.1 Exploitation beyond your project plan

Include the following information within the Desirability question within the DASA Online Submission Service application form to help the assessors understand your exploitation intentions:

• expected additional work required beyond the end of the project to develop an operationally deployable product (for example, “scaling up” for manufacture, cyber security, integration with existing technologies, environmental operating conditions)

• additional future applications and wider markets for exploitation

• wider collaborations and networks you have already developed or any additional relationships you see as a requirement to support exploitation

• how your product could be further tested in later phases

• any specific legal, ethical, commercial or regulatory considerations for exploitation

8. Pre-sift criteria

Before your proposal is assessed, all proposals will be checked for compliance with the DASA pre-sift criteria.  Proposals will be rejected before full assessment if they do not comply.

For more information on how your proposal will be assessed please read Assessment process and criteria.

Innovation in Support of Operations pre-sift criteria is as follows:

Criteria	Measure - Within scope (Pass) / Out of scope (Fail)
The proposal meets the scope of the competition	Pass / Fail
The proposal meets the DASA criteria (Desirability, Feasibility, and Viability) in the relevant questions in Step 3 of the submission service	Pass / Fail
The proposal contains a financial plan, a project plan and a resourcing plan which demonstrates how the work proposed will be completed	Pass / Fail
The delivery schedule within your proposal includes evidence of a written final report	Pass / Fail
We are expecting proposals to cost no more than £350,000. Your proposal must not exceed the cycle funding of £1,000,000	Pass / Fail
The final deliverable month indicated must be less than or equal to 4 months (6 months for Challenge 2) from the project start date agreed by both parties	Pass / Fail
The proposal output is TRL 6	Pass / Fail
The delivery schedule within your proposal includes evidence of an in person demonstration in the UK	Pass / Fail
Your proposal must detail any overseas supply chain dependencies and the risk if disrupted which would impact the ability to deliver your proposed solution at scale, and if appropriate how these dependencies could be mitigated	Pass / Fail
All innovators must ensure that they can obtain, if required, the necessary export licences for their proposals and developments, such that they can deliver to TRL 6 demonstration timelines and be supplied to the UK and other countries	Pass / Fail
To be eligible to submit a proposal into this competition you must be a UK business registered at Companies House. You must be based in the UK and intending to carry out project development activity in the UK	Pass / Fail
The proposal does not contain attachments that have been used for additional text data over the stated word counts in Desirability, Feasibility, Viability and Additional Information	Pass / Fail
If your proposal is a resubmission, does it adhere to the guidelines	Pass / Fail

9. How your proposal will be assessed

Proposals that are compliant will be assessed against the standard DASA assessment criteria (Desirability, Feasibility and Viability) by subject matter experts from the MOD (including Dstl), PAG and the front-line military commands. You will not have the opportunity to view or comment on assessors’ recommendations.

DASA reserves the right to disclose on a confidential basis any information it receives from innovators during the procurement process, which includes the full proposal, to any third party engaged by DASA for the specific purpose of evaluating or assisting DASA in the evaluation of your proposal. In providing such information you consent to such disclosure. Appropriate confidentiality agreements will be put in place.

After assessment, proposals will be discussed at a Decision Conference where funding decisions are made based on the assessments, budget, and wider strategic considerations.

Innovators are not permitted to attend the decision conference.

10. DASA Terms and Conditions

Please read the DASA Terms and Conditions which contain important information for innovators. For this competition we will be using the Innovation Standard Contract (ISC): Terms and Conditions. Information on the relevant DEFCONs can be found by registering on the Knowledge in Defence site.

We require unqualified acceptance of the Terms and Conditions. Where innovator organisations have a commercial department, they will need to provide acceptance.

We will use deliverables from DASA contracts in accordance with our rights detailed in the contract Terms and Conditions. This includes sharing deliverables with international partners under a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU).

10.1 Feedback

Proposals that are unsuccessful will receive feedback in the form of bullet points and a couple of short paragraphs after the Decision Conference.

Where a proposal meets the fundable requirements for a competition, but is not funded, DASA will continue to seek funding from partners across government and shall consider your proposal fundable for 12 months from the date of the decision release.

We will share the abstract, PVPS and title of your proposal with any other UK government departments that may express an interest in funding the proposal through DASA, in accordance with the competition document. If a budget holder within the MOD wishes to read the full proposal to decide if they will fund it, we will share it with them under these circumstances. If it is within 60 days of the original NOT FUNDED decision release date, we will share the full proposal with them without seeking your permission. If it is over 60 days since the original NOT FUNDED decision, we will seek your permission before sharing the full proposal with them.

For other potential funders, we will seek your permission before sharing the full proposal regardless of the number of days since the original NOT FUNDED decision release.

If funding becomes available, DASA may ask whether you would still be prepared to undertake the work outlined in your proposal under the same terms. Your official DASA feedback will indicate if your proposal was deemed fundable, but not awarded funding at the time.

11. If your proposal is recommended for funding

Funded projects will be allocated a Project Manager (to monitor the project) and a Technical Partner (as a technical point of contact). In addition, the DASA team may work with an innovator to support delivery and exploitation including, when appropriate, introductions to end-users and business support to help develop their business.

11.1 Cyber Risk Assessment (CRA)

On receipt of a FUND decision, successful innovators must prove cyber resilience before the contract is awarded. The start of this process is the submission of a Supplier Assurance Questionnaire (SAQ). The SAQ allows innovators to demonstrate compliance with the specified risk level and the corresponding profile in Def Stan 05-138, and the level of control required will depend on this risk level.

To expedite the contracting time of successful innovators we ask all innovators to complete the SAQ before they submit their proposal (this is not mandated). The SAQ must be completed using the DASA Risk Assessment number RAR-240619B04, answer questions for risk level “Very Low”. In the SAQ form, for the contract name please use the competition title and for the contract description please use the title of your proposal.

The Defence Cyber Protection Partnership (DCPP) will review your SAQ submission and aim to respond within 2-5 working days with a reference number and an indication of your compliance status. They welcome emails if you think a response has not been provided in this time. There are 2 compliance statuses:

1. Compliant – no further action
2. Not compliant – you will be required to complete a Cyber Implementation Plan (CIP) before the contract is placed which will need to be reviewed and agreed with the relevant project manager or, a Cyber Essentials Certification (CEC) must be held before contract can be awarded. Further information and guidance on obtaining a CEC can be found here: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/cyberessentials/overview

The email response from DCPP should be uploaded (JPG or PNG format) as part of your proposal before submission. You will also be asked to enter your SAQ reference number. Please allow enough time to receive the SAQ reference number prior to competition close.

11.2 Export control for overseas partners

All relevant export control regulations will apply if a company ultimately wants to sell a developed solution to a foreign entity. Additionally, information or materials utilised in the proposed solution may be subject to foreign export controls.

All innovators must ensure that they can obtain, if required, the necessary export licences for their proposals and developments, such that they can deliver to TRL 6 demonstration timelines and be supplied to the UK and other countries.

If you cannot confirm that you can gain the requisite licences, your proposal will be sifted out of the competition.

Additionally, if we believe that you will not be able to obtain export clearance, additional checks may be conducted, which may also result in your proposal not being funded.

12. Points of Contact

During the competition phase all correspondence must be via the DASA Help Centre accelerator@dstl.gov.uk or your local Innovation Partner.

While all reasonable efforts will be made to answer queries, DASA reserves the right to impose management controls if volumes of queries restrict fair access of information to all potential innovators.

12.1 Innovation Partner

DASA has a team of Innovation Partners that can provide support in working with DASA. It is strongly recommended that you contact your local Innovation Partner to discuss your idea for any aspect of this competition.

You can initiate this through the submission of a Contact DASA Form by following instructions on the Contact a DASA Innovation Partner page if you do not already have an established relationship with your local Innovation Partner.

12.2 DASA Help Centre

Competition queries including on process, application, commercial, technical, and intellectual property aspects should be sent to the DASA Help Centre at accelerator@dstl.gov.uk, quoting the competition title. DASA cannot guarantee a response to a query, 3 weeks before the competition closes.