In a period of major changes in the security field, with emphasis on the last decade, a new initiative has emerged in NATO, which was named Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic or DIANA for short. For the general public, its breadth of innovation promotion is interesting. Its main goal is to encourage innovation in the broadest possible spectrum, namely those that most commonly appear in commercial markets and could also be useful for defence and security purposes. This refers to so-called potential dual use.

Among the important innovations of NATO’s innovation accelerator are test centres, an innovation network, services for rapid implementation of innovations, a secure innovation database and regional offices. Test centres are intended for testing, evaluating and validating new concepts and technologies. They can be part of universities, state programmes or companies. It is important that they provide an environment in which new standards can be achieved, and connectivity, accountability and security are integral parts of their operation. Their operational focus must be user-centred. The accelerator’s innovation network will connect innovators and their innovations from individual member states with other innovators who will be part of this network, so that greater connectivity between them will be possible, and consequently innovations will contribute to greater usability.

The content that NATO’s innovation accelerator has selected as priority and to which it wants to encourage the most potential innovators for further development includes information dissemination and protection, energy resilience, human health and preparedness, sensing and surveillance, interoperability, protection against unmanned devices, and security of logistics and supply chains. All those who are additionally interested in promoting innovation in the alliance can learn more about this topic on the newly established website titled DIANA on NATO’s websites and on the LinkedIn social network. NATO – Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA): Overview | LinkedIn Post | Feed | LinkedIn

Text: Liliana Brožič, MORS, national representative in DIANA
Photo: NATO