What is EUDIS?
EUDIS stands for EU Defence Innovation Scheme. Enabled by the European Defence Fund, EUDIS will see a total investment ambition of close to EUR 2 billion until 2027. The Commission targets to fund EUR 1.46 billion from the EDF and expects to leverage between EUR 400-500 million from other public and private sources.
Targeting small players and non-traditional players in the defence industry, EUDIS embraces the entire innovation ecosystem by offering five tailor-made tracks. The tracks contain different opportunities for small players depending on their innovation maturity level:
- Put your novel idea to challenge: participate in hackathons; organise or take part in technology challenges,
- Test and accelerate your innovation: apply for cascade funding from consortiums,
- Migrate your innovation from civil to defence: consortia can build upon the results of civil EU-funded programmes and transfer the results to defence applications,
- Improve your access to finance to scale-up: apply for the proposed Defence Equity Facility under InvestEU to receive funding,
- Empower SMEs: apply for open SME and disruptive technology calls, with beneficiaries eligible to receive business coaching and partake in match-making opportunities.
How is EUDIS funded?
EUDIS is part of the European Defence Fund (EDF).
Further information on the EDF is available on its website.
Can entities that are not established in the EU participate in a project supported by EUDIS?
Entities participating in EUDIS projects should be located in the EU/Norway and not being controlled by non-EU/associated countries entities.
Can third state employees work for projects supported by EDF/EUDIS?
As regards employees of entities that have been assessed as not subject to control by a non-associated third country or by a non-associated third-country entity: the Member State competent authorities are in charge of security clearance and if the person is handling/working with classified information (CI), then the national legislation on CI should apply.
The employees will need to have the relevant permissions to have access to the information. The security framework is under the responsibility of the Member States. Therefore, any question concerning security should be addressed to them.
As regards employees of entities that have been assessed as controlled by non-associated third countries (or third-country entities): there is a concrete obligation under Art 9(4)b) of the EDF Regulation for the employees or other persons involved in the action to have national security clearance issued by a Member State or an associated country, where appropriate.
In such a case the obligation emanates directly from the EDF regulation and thus such persons are obliged to have security clearance by a Member State to be involved in the action.
In both cases, these employees are supposed to be located in the EU/Norway when performing the work.
How can participants apply and what are the application deadlines?
The EUDIS annual calls for proposals are an intergral part of the European Defence Fund’s Work Programme, which is published annually.
The EDF 2025 Work Programme was published on 30 January 2025.
Please consult the EU Funding & Tenders Portal page dedicated to the EDF Programme or click on each EUDIS track in this webpage to consult specific EUDIS calls.
Who owns the intellectual property of EUDIS-funded projects?
The granting authority (Commission) does not obtain ownership of the results produced under the action. Results belong to the beneficiary(-ies) that generated them. For the hackathons, the individuals/teams will own the generated intellectual property rights.
However, per established contractual practice, the Commission reserves the right to use non-sensitive information relating to the action and documents received from the beneficiaries for policy, information, communication, dissemination, and publicity purposes. This applies both during the action and afterwards.
Where can I find more information about EUDIS in my Member State and Norway?
National Focal Points (NFPs) support the implementation of the European Defence Fund (EDF), including EUDIS.
NFPs are individuals nominated by EU Member States and countries associated to the EDF (Norway). They support the implementation of the EDF, for example, by reaching out to stakeholders or providing advice to potential applications or beneficiaries of the EDF programme. This includes EUDIS.