On 23 May, EDA hosted a technical workshop on ‘Graphene in Defence’ which brought together some 50 experts from European Ministries of Defence, industry, SMEs, academia and research and technology organisations. With the graphene workstrand, EDA is entering unchartered but promising territory as it is the first time that this high-potential material is the subject of European collaboration in the defence domain.

The workshop is part of EDA’s ongoing ‘Impact of Graphene in Defence’ project run by a consortium led by Tecnalia R&I Innovation.

The ambition of this project is to evaluate the possibility of establishing a European Graphene Roadmap in Defence, through the assessment of graphene’s impact and potential application in eight defence-related domains:

(Opto)electronic materials and devices

Flexible Systems

Energy Devices

Multifunctional materials

Camouflage and signature management

Membranes and filters

Biomedical applications

Sensors

The workshop was attended by representatives of the European Commission (DG CONNECT) who presented the ‘Graphene Flagship’, one of Future and Emerging Technology Flagships initiated by the Commission bringing together academic and industrial researchers to take graphene from the realm of academic laboratories into European society and industry.

Experts from industry, academia and MoDs also provided their insight and expertise with a view to identifying a possible timeline and the required investments to develop the 8 afore-mentioned defence applications in the air, land and domains as well as in other cross-cutting areas.

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