On June 4, 2024, Naval Group gathered the Hellenic industry, academics and research centres in Athens for the fourth edition of the “R&D Partners Day”. 

As announced, this event, organized with Naval Group’s partner, National Centre For Scientific Research “Demokritos”, with the support of SEKPY (Hellenic Defence Materiel Manufacturers Association) and HASDIG (Hellenic Aerospace Security & Defence Industries Group), was the opportunity to promote cooperation with Hellenic partners in R&D areas, as part of the development of the European defence innovations strategy.

Alongside the FDI frigates’ development program, Naval Group has developed a strong relationship with many high-skilled companies within the Hellenic defence industry, research and academic partners, ready to partner into innovation programs. 

Through these programs, Naval Group seeks to widen its scope of innovative activities in Greece and to support the development of the future Hellenic naval warfare capabilities. Every year, the “R&D Partners Day” is the opportunity to meet with current and new partners and discuss ongoing and future projects.

Taking place at the Demokritos congress Centre, this fourth edition of the “R&D Partner’s day” provided new opportunities to identify future cooperation projects between Naval Group and Hellenic partners on the upcoming European Union Calls for proposal and exchange views on several technological fields such as new energies, Artificial Intelligence and Quantum technologies.

Emphasis was also placed on integrating technological innovations from Hellenic start-ups into future projects, benefiting from their flexibility and ability to accelerate research on various fields, considering NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) and the European HEDI (Hub for European Defence Innovation).

On this occasion, the new Director of the General Directorate for Defence Investments and Armaments (GDDIA), Major General Ioannis Bouras, gave the opening speech and stressed the importance of innovations and R&T cooperation to support the development of Hellenic naval warfare capabilities, confirming his support to this Naval Group initiative to trigger fruitful cooperation.

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Several projects developed in the framework of the European Union and involving Naval Group and Hellenic companies have already given successful results, which pave the way for future collaboration (PANDORA, ECHO, EFFECTOR, MIRICLE, SEA NICE). Currently, many other projects are ongoing such as DTHOR, FARADAI, SIMTRAIN, E-NACSOS, Swat shoal, SWARM, and Federates.

Three new projects involving Naval Group and Hellenic companies have just been selected by the European Commission as part of the 2023 call of the European Defence Fund: the second call on European patrol corvette, the project Seacure and the project Calipso, coordinated by Naval Group’s partner “Demokritos”.

The selection of the Calipso project for the European Defence Fund call 2023 shows the success of the partnership between Naval Group and Demokritos. Both parties decided to strengthen their partnership since the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding and Cooperation (MoU) in November 2023, aiming at developing and sharing know-how and best practices as well as fostering the development of joint projects in relation with naval technology.

Beyond European projects, very fruitful academic bilateral cooperations are also underway with the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) on Composites, with the University of Patras and BT-Composite as well as the Hellenic Naval Academy through a very inspiring wargame on unmanned system launched last April in Athens with Cadets, officers, professors and experts.

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