Collaboration in defence – Technology’s role in strengthening partnerships and finding the edge

Many hands make light work is the old adage, and whether it’s our UK and European colleagues deployed under the NATO banner in Estonia, or the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps in Gloucestershire, collaborating in the technology space to ensure better defence cooperation is critical. It’s especially relevant with our NATO allies, many of whom are facing tests from adversaries old and new – within and without.  

We are seeing a consistent growth of hybrid threats on both the physical and virtual battlefields, and we all know that it's integration that will enable us to share technology for the benefit of all. We work collaboratively with our partners and clients to provide technology integration services that are already doing this.

We ensure that during exercises that bring together multiple nations with multiple platforms in multiple domains, sharing actionable intelligence is both autonomous and seamless – giving our allies the edge they need to succeed. Creating one software-driven ecosystem from many is a key success factor in our involvement with exercises such as NATO’s Innovation Continuum Shine (IC24SHINE) event in 2024 and the AI Strategic Challenge (AISC) event in October 2023, hosted by the Australian Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG) under the FVEY S&T Program. 

But we’re conscious that we can’t do it alone – and there is nothing wrong with that. Much like our own allies on the ground, we are aware that there may be gaps in our own expertise that can be filled with trusted allies and partners when it comes to innovating the next solution. We’ve seen it already in our own work. At NATO IC24SHINE we were contracted by Dstl to partner with innovative consultancies like Frazer-Nash and advanced research institutions like the University of Liverpool to deliver experiments hosted by NATO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (NATO STO-CMRE).

These agreements create a team environment to be envied. It’s this team that has enabled the success of Reactive ISR in the first place, which is something we’re incredibly proud of.  

Acceleration of R&D, better awareness of interoperability, access to innovative and entrepreneurial people – it seems simple, but it’s more like getting the right pattern to enable a complex weave that creates a fabric to embrace all partners and ensure there is equitable access to technological advancements. If it’s interoperability you want, then it’s total collaboration that you need. 

But to get that in an age of technology and AI, you can’t forget two extra important aspects of partnerships: trust and transparency. Ethical AI and ethically driven data being used in autonomous systems must be at the forefront of any technology development. Being transparent with data sets and models, developing architecture to be open and with future capability implementation in mind (away from vendor locking), building clear governance structures, and ensuring international legal compliance is complicated but essential. If the foundations of shared tech projects aren’t built on the above, then those same foundations will crumble – or be picked apart.  

Not unlike any business deal, due diligence with ethics and transparency at its heart is key to forging stronger alliances – and mutual trust.

When decisions are being made by humans that are being fed data from multiple areas – you need the confidence that any recommendations are made on an ethical basis. Otherwise, we’re no better than our opposition. 

There is a lot to discuss with all of the above, and of course the future remains uncertain for everyone involved. But what we do know is that the fundamentals of the technologies of the future are going to be data and insights that are collaborative in nature, internationally minded, and ethically developed. Roke has been using data in this manner for over 50 years, and we’re ready to continue that journey towards a safer world. Our allies and customers have the edge, are you ready to join us?