Dstl – Distributed Analytics and Information Science Call

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The US Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and the The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) have announced the intention to form a new and innovative consortium between the US and the UK in the area of Distributed Analytics and Information Science (DAIS). The DAIS ITA program seeks to develop the fundamental underpinning research required to enable secure, dynamic, semantically-aware, distributed analytics for deriving situational understanding in coalition operations – addressing their increasing prevelence and complexity. The consortium, which will last for a 5 to 10 year period and spend around $8-10 million each year, will consider how to solve fundamental problems associated with how information is handled on a coalition battlefield, as they hope to significantly advance the state of the art in distributed analytics and information science, and ultimately improve information superiority.

Dstl and ARL are jointly holding an Opportunity Day in the UK on the 3rd February 2015, at the De Vere Holburn Bars, London, where applicants can learn how to get involved with the project:

To find out more – Click here
To register for the UK Opportunity Day – Click here

CDE Innovation Network event

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The Centre for Defence Enterprise (CDE) (Part of DSTL) is holding a networking event for science and technology providers. Here, head of CDE, Andy Nicholson, will introduce CDE and give an overview of proof-of-concept research funding opportunities for innovative science and technology providers, followed by Bruce Hardie, Technology Manager, discussing how to create an effective proposal for CDE funding. In addition Military Advisers from the DSTL will give an overview of areas of innovative research ideas for CDE’s ongoing enduring challenge competition, and there is opportunity to book face-to-face meetings with CDE, DSTL and Military experts to discuss potential proposals. You’ll also have the opportunity to meet other potential bidders and current DSTL suppliers, as well as be able to see examples of successful CDE projects.

Midway through the day there will be a briefing on a new themed competition from CDE regarding “affordable space-based capability” – which seeks proof-of-concept research proposals for novel technologies that could lead to a step change in UK military space-based capability or substantially reduce the cost of the systems. This competition will fund exploratory studies and demonstrations to develop concepts and technologies required for delivering a UK space-based military capability.

Date: 18th November 2014
Time: 9:30-16:00
Location: London at De Vere Canary Wharf

To register for this event, view the agenda, and find out more – Click here (Registration closes on Friday 14 November 2014 at 12:30pm.)
To find out more on CDE “affordable space-based capability” competition – Click here

Dstl: Industry and academia engagement day

DstlRepresentatives from industry and academia are invited to an engagement day on 17 July in Winchester to help shape how the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) contracts for analysis in the future.

The Analysis Support Construct (ASC) project has been commissioned to deliver an agile and flexible commercial solution to address increased government demand for evidence-based decision-making.

Demand for studies requiring analysis, from the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and across government, remains high and is expected to increase over the next few years. Dstl is looking to work with industry and academia to meet this current and future demand.

The ambition is to design a contract vehicle that can allow a broad supplier base to work in a flexible and responsive manner across a range of analysis programmes.

Areas will include policy and strategy, decision support, capability and investment support, operational support, and methods, models, tools and techniques.

This event aims to showcase current thinking and explore options for growing a community which has a shared understanding of the problems and domain knowledge and examine industries’ views on the chosen analysis taxonomy.

To register for the engagement day visit https://www.regonline.co.uk/ASCsupplierday

CDE Themed Call – The Challenges of Countering Terrorist Network

The Challenges of Countering Terrorist Networks
http://www.science.mod.uk/events/event_detail.aspx?eventid=202

 The effects of terrorism can have a significant impact on the UK. Identifying terrorist activity and understanding the associated network is key to countering any impact a network may exert.

This CDE themed call presents the following three S&T challenges:

  1. Understanding networks – we need effective methods to explore the potentially large volume of data available from a variety of sources, across a range of data formats (eg audio, visual, text) to help identify the key activities and individuals that form any network.
  2. Identifying individuals – we are looking for novel techniques that uniquely identify an individual, be those biometric or repeatable behaviours (eg within the digital domain). Priorities in this area include reducing the size, weight and power requirements of current forensic technology, moving to near real-time processing and the potential of remote operation without reaching back to large databases.
  3. Translating information – we need to extract information from different sources which may be in a wide range of different languages. In particular, we need to be able to rapidly prioritise sources of information (audio, paper and electronic) to enable human interpreters to focus only on key information sources for full translation.

There is a launch event taking place in Reading, on 19 March, which I would recommend attending if you are considering applying.

  •  Internal deadline: Tuesday 24 April 2013 1200
  • Official deadline: Wednesday 1 May 2013 1700

Please let me know if any of you are interested in applying.