Deadline Date: February 16, 2027
The European Commission is seeking grant applications to boost industrial capacity and EU–Ukraine cooperation for unmanned and counter-unmanned systems to improve defence production readiness and resilience.
The focus areas, of this programme include demonstrable and sustainable increases in production capacity in Ukraine for targeted (counter-)UxS production lines, measurable reductions in production lead times from order or production decision to delivery, improved timely availability and supply of defence products including delivery reliability and readiness of production lines, effective cross-border cooperation between Ukraine and the EU to enable production ramp-up, integration, qualification and sustainment, and strengthening of the Ukrainian industrial base including Manufacturing as a Service and dual-use heavy industry conversion pathways for surge. It also covers reinforcement of (swarming) unmanned systems including FPV variants, modular payload configurations, relay and repeater variants, AI-enabled and autonomy-enabled systems, interceptor variants, EW-resilient unmanned systems including fibre-optic controlled systems, and counter-unmanned systems with detection, jamming, spoofing, spectrum management, optronic and radar-guided capabilities, as well as industrial reinforcement actions, production scaling, and cyber and physical protection of production capacity.
This programme supports industrial reinforcement actions aimed at rapidly scaling and strengthening defence production capabilities for unmanned systems and counter-unmanned systems. It focuses on enabling joint production lines between the European Union and Ukraine, improving integration, validation and testing of systems, and expanding manufacturing and maintenance capacities to sustain high-volume output.
It further includes the development of Manufacturing as a Service approaches, allowing flexible small-batch production, fast line changeovers, and scalable assembly and testing for attritable unmanned systems. It also supports dual-use heavy industry conversion options to enable surge production capacity, including assembly, integration, testing, packaging and supporting infrastructure.
Projects under this call are expected to define and track key performance indicators such as production output, time-to-rate, lead-time reduction, production line availability and uptime, qualified output delivered in Ukraine, Manufacturing as a Service throughput, surge conversion readiness, workforce training, and supply chain robustness indicators.
The actions may also include optional work packages aimed at physical and cyber protection of production facilities, including counter-unmanned systems protection measures, detection and alerting systems, cyber security monitoring, system hardening, and alignment with European cybersecurity certification and relevant security standards.
The total budget for this programme is EUR 80,000,000, with a maximum EU contribution of EUR 10,000,000 per project and a minimum eligible project size of EUR 2,000,000. Optional security-related work packages may receive additional support up to EUR 200,000 per project.
Eligible applicants are legal entities established in EU Member States or Ukraine, including public and private bodies. Organisations must have their executive management structure located in eligible countries and must not be controlled by non-associated third countries, with specific exceptions under defined regulatory conditions. Entities located in non-government controlled areas of Ukraine are not eligible.
Projects are expected to start after the signature of the grant agreement and run for an indicative duration of three to five years, with completion no later than 31 December 2033.
For more information, visit European Commission.
