Strategy

Strategy

Today the UK faces adversaries whose tactics change rapidly and employ ever more varied advanced and innovative technologies. This demands rapid evolution in our response, both tactically and in the technologies we deploy to combat the threats. Our task is to anticipate, prepare and meet the forthcoming challenges by being highly innovative, agile and flexible in our approach to defence science and technology.

Innovation in Defence is central to providing improved equipment, processes and services to our Armed Forces. The MOD drives innovation by generating and exploiting new or novel applications of technology, processes and services. We are innovating in our acquisition cycle, to reduce procurement times and improve the cost-effectiveness and reliability of equipment. The Government's "Innovation Nation" White Paper, published in March 2008, committed all Departments to produce an innovation procurement plan. The MOD's response is published set out in a suite of published documents available on this website and summarised here to read the published documents.

The Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS) provides a strategic overview of the defence and security environments and reviews specific industrial sectors to ensure that the requirements of the Armed Forces can be met now and in the future.

The Defence Technology Strategy (DTS) builds on the DIS and (for the first time) MOD openly publishes its priorities for R&D, funding, skills, improved processes, opportunities and areas for international research collaboration.

The Defence Technology Plan (DTP) is a cost-balanced list of current Research and Development (R&D) priorities of the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and provides clear direction to the R&D community on investment in defence technology and seeks fresh, innovative thinking.