Research actions in the form of a technological challenge implemented via lump sum grants

Home Funding Calls for proposals AI-based tactical situational awareness using swarms of small robots and drones – organisation of a technological challenge" AI-based tactical situational awareness using swarms of small robots and drones – organisation of a technological challenge" EDF-2026-LS-RA-CHALLENGE-DIGIT-AISAO Topic Call for proposal Internal navigation General information Topic description Topic updates Conditions and documents Budget overview Partner search announcements Start submission Topic Q&As Get support General information Programme European Defence Fund (EDF) Call Research actions in the form of a technological challenge implemented via lump sum grants (EDF-2026-LS-RA-CHALLENGE) Type of action EDF-LS EDF Lump Sum Grants Type of MGA EDF Lump Sum Grant [EDF-AG-LS] Open For Submission Deadline model single-stage Opening date 11 February 2026 Deadline date 29 September 2026 17:00:00 Brussels time Topic description Scope: The automatic analysis of tactical situations using fleets of robots, drones and AI is an important research topic that lacks standardised benchmarks and objective evaluation campaigns. This call topic aims to set up a testing environment and organise a technological challenge in which research teams will participate, supported by another topic (EDF-2024-LS-RA-CHALLENGE-DIGIT-AISAP-STEP) and possibly other sources of funding. The testing environment should enable objective comparisons between different approaches. Data should be collected during field tests, annotated and shared to enable the validation of the system performances based on precise evaluation criteria and plans, to be provided as part of the call document. Targeted types of activities: Integrating knowledge, not excluding upstream and downstream activities eligible for research actions. Indicative budget: EUR 7 000 000 for this topic under the EDF-2026-LS-RA-CHALLENGE call. Indicative number of proposals to be funded: One proposal is to be funded for this topic. Show more Topic updates 10 August 2026 On 13 July 2026, the European Union and Ukraine signed the Association Agreement on the participation of Ukraine in the European Defence Fund (EDF). This Association Agreement will formally enter into force once the Parties have notified each other of the completion of their respective internal procedures necessary for that purpose. When the Association Agreement will enter into force, legal entities established in Ukraine will become eligible as beneficiaries and subcontractors involved in the actions supported by the EDF under the conditions laid down in Regulation (EU) 2021/697. In the meantime, Ukrainian legal entities may already apply and be considered as consortium members for the EDF Calls for proposals for 2026. For more information see QnA. 12 February 2026 The submission session is now available for: EDF-2026-LS-RA-CHALLENGE-DIGIT-AISAO, EDF-2026-LS-RA-CHALLENGE-DIGIT-AISAP-STEP Show more Topic conditions and documents Conditions 1. Admissibility Conditions: Proposal page limit and layout described in section 5 of the call document. Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System. 2. Eligible Countries described in section 6 of the call document. 3. Other Eligible Conditions described in section 6 of the call document. 4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion described in section 7 of the call document. 5a. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes described section 8 of the call document and the Online Manual. 5b. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds described in section 9 of the call document. 5c. Evaluation and award: Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement described in section 4 of the call document. 6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants described in section 10 of the call document. Call document and annexes: Call document Application form templates Standard application form (EDF) — the application form specific to this call is available in the Submission System Detailed budget table (EDF LS RA) Participant information (EDF) List of infrastructure, facilities, assets and resources (EDF) Actual indirect cost methodology declaration (EDF) Ownership control declaration Ownership control guarantee PRS declaration (EDF) Model Grant Agreements (MGA) EDF, ASAP and EDIRPA Lump Sum MGA Additional documents: EDF Annual Work Programme EDF Regulation 2021/697 EDF Programme Security Instruction (PSI) Guidelines on FSTP implementation - WP2026 EU Financial Regulation 2024/2509 Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual Funding & Tenders Portal Terms and Conditions Funding & Tenders Portal Privacy Statement Show more Budget overview Topic Budget year : 2026 Stages Opening date Deadline Contributions Indicative number of grants EDF-2026-LS-RA-CHALLENGE-DIGIT-AISAO - EDF-LS EDF Lump Sum Grants EDF-2026-LS-RA-CHALLENGE-DIGIT-AISAP-STEP - EDF-LS EDF Lump Sum Grants 30 000 000,00 € Single-stage 11 February 2026 29 September 2026 Items per page: 10 50 100 Showing 1–1 of 1 Partner search announcements 62 Searches of partners to collaborate on this topic View / Edit LEARs, Account Administrators or self-registrants can publish partner requests for open and forthcoming topics after logging into this Portal, as well as any user having an active public Person profile. Start submission Need help? To access the Electronic Submission Service, please click on the submission-button next to the type of action and the type of model grant agreement that corresponds to your proposal. You will then be asked to confirm your choice, as it cannot be changed in the submission system. Upon confirmation, you will be linked to the correct entry point. To access existing draft proposals for this topic, please login to the Funding & Tenders Portal and select the My Proposals page of the My Area section. Please select the type of your submission: EDF Lump Sum Grants [EDF-LS], EDF Lump Sum Grant [EDF-AG-LS] Start submission Topic Q&As64 item(s) found General FAQ Under EDF, is it possible to participate in the same call more than one time in different roles? Yes, it is possible to participate in the same call in more than one proposals, as long as the proposals are different. Under EDF, can the same Ownership control declaration be reused for multiple proposals—provided that the document remains valid and has been signed recently? The new Ownership Control Declaration (OCD) template requires information on the proposal. Moreover, as a novelty, there is a separate template to be filled in for the part on the gu... Under EDF detailed budget table annex, the "Add line" buttons are missing in some of the costs categories after a certain number of WP have been added, preventing us from filling in the detailed sheet per BE/AE. Why is this? This happens when applicants using Office 365 do not activate the "Compatibility option" in Excel parameters, leading to floating buttons and errors in the generation of buttons. Thi... I am a mac user. When filling in the EDF detailed budget table, I get an error during validation and export before the files are exported. What should I do? Once the error happens, click ok to close the error message and then save manually the file using the following name convention [TOPIC_ID]_[ACRONYM_OF_PROPOSAL]_dbt: 1) first as an x... Under an EDF call for a technological challenge, may an entity be part of different participating teams? As mentioned in the call document, applicants may submit more than one proposal for different projects under the same call and be awarded a funding for them. This possibility for an ... Who can participate in a technological challenge call under the EDF? The EDF eligibility rules apply to entities and consortia taking part in technological challenges organised under the EDF. In particular, the organising consortium of an EDF technolo... Can applicants for the organisation and for participation to an EDF technological challenge call communicate with one another during proposal preparation? Applicants involved in different proposals are free to communicate with one another to contribute to a smooth cooperation later on during the challenge implementation, provided that ... Under an EDF call for a technological challenge, can an entity apply both as an organiser and as a participant? Organisers and participants rely on different competencies and generally belong to different entities. However, in specific cases (e.g. different divisions or departments in large or... Under EDF, what are capability requirements and technical specifications? Capability Requirements: These describe what the end-user wants a capability to achieve, without considering the technical details. In other words, it outlines the desired outcome fr... Under EDF, if an entity is based in EU and has a subsidiary which it controls 100% in a third country, is work done in the third country location an eligible cost and is there a difference if the work is done by EU or third country nationals? The work done in the third country subsidiary is not eligible for EDF funding, regardless of the nationality of the workers. The framework conditions for the eligibility of legal ent... Under EDF, what is defined as equipment and what depreciation rate should be applied? Purchases of equipment, infrastructure or other assets used for the action must all be declared as depreciation costs, calculated on the basis of the costs actually incurred and writ... Under an EDF call for a technological challenge, may the tasks on which systems are evaluated change every year? While some tasks might not be covered every year for practical reasons, repeating the evaluation process in the same conditions over the years is needed for measuring progress. Under an EDF call for a technological challenge, can participants choose the tasks for which they participate in the evaluation? It is in the interest of the participants to make the most of the foreseen testing environment, and therefore in principle to participate for all tasks of each evaluation campaigns i... Under EDF, when starting the online submission process, should I add subcontractors in step ‘Participants’? In the submission process, when you reach the step ‘Participants’, you are invited to indicate only the beneficiaries (referred to as ‘Partners’) and, if any, affiliated entities and... Under EDF, we would like to declare Actual Indirect Costs in our proposal. The declaration requires at least 2 examples of similar projects where we used the method described in the document. Since it is our first time, we do not have any. What do we do? In order to declare actual indirect costs instead of the ordinary 25% flat rate, you must comply with the two conditions established by art. 15.2 of the EDF Regulation: you need to s... Under EDF, are there specific site security requirements that a company must meet to participate in projects that are not classified, in particular the minimum security levels concerning “office environments”? For EDF calls that do not foresee the submission of proposals at an established level of security classification, there are no specific security requirements that the applicants must... What kind of activities qualify for funding under EDF? Proposals for European Defence Fund have to cover a new defence product or technology or upgrade. You can learn more about the types of calls EDF funds at https://defence-industry-sp... Under EDF, if a proposal is a follow-on of a previously funded EDF project, what costs are eligible if for example a prototype has already been fully funded under the predecessor project? Like any other action supported by EDF, eligible costs for follow-up projects are set out in Article 13 of EDF Regulation. They vary according to the type of action supported [... συνέχεια στην επίσημη πρόσκληση]