DEFRA Human Factors Open Call
Funds Belgian deep-tech companies researching human performance and human-machine integration for defence applications.
⚠ This may reflect a past cycle — verify the current call on the funder's site.
BELSPO manages the Defence-related Research Action (DEFRA) on behalf of Belgium's Ministry of Defence and Royal Higher Institute for Defence (RHID). This Human Factors Open Call is an annual-style call under DEFRA inviting research projects in the human factors domain relevant to Belgian Defence. Projects can run for two to four years and receive funding directly from the Ministry of Defence under a Royal Decree contract. The available budget for this call is 4.0 million EUR. There is no set maximum budget per project, but applicants must stay within the total. The number of funded projects depends on the budget requested and evaluation results.
The call is open to Belgian universities, public research institutes, and private companies including SMEs. A company must have operational or research activities on Belgian territory. Projects require a triple-helix partnership composition: at least one research partner and one industry partner must collaborate. The coordinator manages the consortium and is responsible for all deliverables and financial reporting to RHID.
Applications go through two phases: a short pre-proposal (Phase 1) evaluated by the scientific committee of the RHID, followed by a full proposal (Phase 2) for those invited to continue. Full proposals undergo remote scientific peer review, ethical evaluation, panel interviews with applicants, and final selection by the RHID Board of Directors.
Watch out: projects must list an information day registration in advance, and the submission platform is the online DEFRA portal (not a generic Belgian grants portal). Personnel working on the project must be nationals of EU, EFTA, or NATO countries and may be subject to security verification before joining. IP ownership follows DEFRA General Conditions — foreground stays with the partner who generated it.
Human factors in defence and security: human performance in extreme environments, cognitive warfare, human-machine teaming, AI-human integration, human enhancement, team functioning, organisational culture, and ethics of military AI.
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