To keep our Armed Forces safe, the UK and US governments are offering up to £1.5 million for new technologies to access, disable and/or destroy munitions and improvised explosive devices containing chemical and biological agents…
Following a successful first phase, the UK’s Defence and Security Accelerator is launching a Phase 2 ‘Don’t Blow It’ competition to fund emerging innovations, at technology readiness level 3 and above to develop full-scale prototypes.
The funding comes from the UK Ministry of Defence and the US Department of Defense, with the competition operating under an existing memorandum of understanding between the two nations.
Under the Chemical Weapons Convention, all member states are obligated to destroy any chemical weapons they own or possess, or that they abandoned on the territory of another member state. Whilst destruction technologies exist for this purpose, they are not appropriate for use in all circumstances.
Recent events have increased the focus on the need for a toolkit to enable rapid and effective disablement or irreversible destruction of smaller caches discovered in resource-limited environments.
Through this competition, DASA is seeking novel or innovative new concepts or adaptions of current technologies. The solutions will ultimately enable more rapid, effective and flexible destruction methods than are used for large stockpiles, and reduce logistical support requirements, whilst maximising ease of operation, transportability and ruggedness of the equipment.