On 12 December 2022, the North Atlantic Defense Innovation Accelerator (DIANA) Steering Committee decided that, as part of its work on Emerging and Disruptive Technologies (TE/TR), DIANA will focus in 2023 on three areas: energy resilience, secure information sharing, detection and surveillance.
The DIANA 2023 strategic directive focuses on these three areas; it will allow to define the first defense and security problems for which DIANA will have to find dual technological solutions. “This strategic directive provides the DIANA Executive Committee with clear direction on the development of the pilot programs that we will launch in spring 2023, and which will benefit both the civilian and military sectors,” said David Van Weel, interim director general of DIANA.
Work on energy resilience will aim to ensure that sufficient amounts of energy are always available for the performance of NATO’s missions and operations. The technological solutions that will be found in this area should help the Allies in the event of an interruption – anticipated or otherwise – of energy supplies. They may concern preparedness measures, minimization of impacts, adaptation or resumption of activities. The secure sharing of information responds to the need to protect the data of interest, from collection to dissemination. It allows the information drawn from these data to be considered reliable. Detection and surveillance is broadly the systematic collection of observations in the physical and digital domains, for purposes such as situational awareness and prediction.
During the above meeting, the Management Committee elected its Chairman Barbara K. McQuistondeputy technical director for science and technology at the US Department of Defense, and to his deputy chairmanship Imre Porkoláb, commissioner responsible for defense innovation at the Hungarian Ministry of Defence.
It was in 2021, at the Brussels summit, that the Allies agreed to establish DIANA, the goal of which is to provide funding to innovators from NATO countries working in deep dual-use technology, as well as enable them to adapt their technological solutions more rapid response to defense and security needs. DIANA will help ensure that the Alliance maintains its technology leadership in the priority areas of big data computing, artificial intelligence (AI), autonomy, quantum technologies, biotechnology and human resources capacity building, energy and propulsion, innovative materials and advanced manufacturing processes, and space. DIANA’s charter was approved in 2022 at the Madrid summit and its board of directors, which includes a representative from each of the Alliance countries and met for the first time in October 2022, is responsible for its organizational governance .