DEFRA — Defence-Related Research Action

DEFRA, or Defence-Related Research Action, is the Belgian Science Policy Office's defence and security research programme. The sixth call in 2026 carried a €26 million budget across ten themes, including propulsion, cyber, military medical logistics, biomanufacturing, smart energy, sensing, unmanned systems, conflict dynamics, communications, and an open defence-relevant research track. The call is organised as a two-stage competition with pre-proposals and full proposals. Projects run for two to four years, and the 2026 cycle set information sessions in late January, a pre-proposal deadline on 19 February 2026, a full-proposal deadline on 4 May 2026, and final selection for 10 September 2026. The Human Factors and Space strands sit as dedicated sub-themes within the same call family, with their own budgets of €4 million and €16 million respectively. DEFRA is designed for public and private researchers working on defence-relevant topics that can clear peer review, ethics review, and panel interviews. Strong submissions are tightly scoped to one theme, explicit about defence relevance, and realistic over a 2-4 year project horizon. The programme is still in evaluation for the 2026 cycle, so applicants should treat it as a live call family with a defined set of thematic lanes rather than a general open grant.

Each grant below is a distinct funding opportunity with its own eligibility, scope, and deliverables.