2501. Dual-use innovation: Confronting the challenges and delivering EU security and competitiveness
- Author:
- Alison Hunter
- Publication Date:
- 11-2025
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- European Policy Centre (EPC)
- Abstract:
- The EU is navigating a complex security and defence (S&D) transition. Responding with speed and certaint is difficult at a time of geopolitical upheaval. Europe is meeting the sharp wake-up call heralding the end of the peace dividend with a significant absence of preparedness. At the same time, the Union must confront new global threats to its economic competitiveness. It stands at an inflection point, where security and defence ambitions are no longer peripheral – they are existential. Defence innovation must be understood as a lever for the EU to respond to this new reality, allowing the Union to position Europe’s industrial defence as the driver of its global competitiveness and the key to determining its future. Despite many new instruments – such as the SAFE1 facility, the Defence Industrial Strategy (2024) and the Readiness Roadmap 2030 – Europe’s defence production and technological agility lag significantly behind the United States and key global competitors. The EU’s industrial defence bottlenecks are deep- rooted and structural. National sovereignty concerns and disharmony among the EU27 impede collective action, while Single Market deficits prevent the scale and direction of the industrial response needed. This has resulted in security incrementalism, where siloed, short- term actions replace systemic and long-term strategic direction. There is no amount of financing, smart policy or political rhetoric that can compensate for the decisive and collective action needed. This paper advocates for the design of an EU dual- use innovation framework spanning technologies, infrastructures and financing frameworks that serve both civilian and military purposes. This will help the Union overcome the current impasse and drive its international security and competitiveness. Achieving this is a complex endeavour. It involves fundamental changes to the regulatory environment and reforms to the Union’s approach to trans-national collaboration across the entire innovation spectrum – from industry, to investment, to infrastructures. Dual-use innovation must permeate all EU territories. Delivery depends on more than higher defence-related spending. It requires a ‘whole of government’ and ‘dual-use by design’ approach, through upgraded governance systems, legislation and institutional capacity, navigated by a high level of ‘buy-in’ from political, policy, industrial and civil society actors. In short, dual-use innovation must be re-positioned from being part of the EU’s innovation agenda to acting as its driving force. A new arsenal of EU, industrial, defence-driven policy and investment measures have taken shape, with more on the way to respond to the Union’s industrial defence-readiness needs and production capacity deficits. Success requires a clearer understanding of the trade-offs associated with an industrial effort of this magnitude. Improved strategic coordination is underway but must be strengthened under the new Readiness Roadmap and proposed Defence Semester. The European Commission’s proposals related to the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) seek to embed defence spending across key policy instruments. However, the scope for defence-related innovation to serve a broader range of EU objectives (e.g. targeting the EU’s multiple transition challenges and boosting sub-national preparedness efforts) has, so far, been vastly under-acknowledged. A dual-use innovation approach can help to bridge solutions – across military and non-military contexts – thereby confronting a range of societal challenges and strengthening the mileage of innovation defence investments. It could unlock political, societal and financing tensions.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, European Union, Innovation, and Dual Use Items
- Political Geography:
- Europe