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The alternate executive vice president of CRUCH, Hans Richter, stated that the initiative would allow “formalizing a series of collaboration networks”, as well as “focusing on installing new capabilities in regions” and “highlighting and positioning the contribution of women in this area of technological development”.
The project, which is in its first legislative stage and will go on to discussion in the Senate, proposes to recognize October 13 as the “day of innovation in defense”.
Invited by the Senate's National Defense Commission, the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH), through its alternate executive vice president, Hans Richter, expressed its opinion regarding the Bill (PDL) for the creation of a new national ecosystem of innovation in defense, stating its approval and willingness to collaborate on these matters.
“As CRUCH, we support the development and launch of a project of this nature. This is because it will allow us to formalize a series of collaborative networks that already exist,” said Richter, who also emphasized that 901% of all the country's scientific, technological, and innovation knowledge is developed in universities, and therefore, “the fact that CRUCH is composed of the country's leading and most prominent universities allows for a significant concentration of these capabilities.”.
The Defense Policy Bill (PDL), currently in its first legislative stage and set to be debated in the Senate, aims to develop a strategic capacity to define areas of interest, as well as to strengthen and prioritize research into dual-use technologies—those that serve both civilian and national defense purposes. It also proposes recognizing October 13 as “Defense Innovation Day.”.
In this regard, Richter commented that while CRUCH universities currently maintain multiple collaboration agreements and ongoing projects with all branches of the armed forces, as well as the Carabineros and the PDI (Chilean Investigative Police), “to accelerate the integration of research and development of dual-use technologies more effectively within university ecosystems, it would be beneficial, for example, to create a project line dedicated to this type of development.” In this sense, he suggested that it would be positive to initiate discussions with the Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation to establish an applied research line.
A project with European inspiration
The PDL was born as a result of the announcement of the establishment of the first European Day of "Innovation in Defence", which was established during 2022 by the member countries of the Northern Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Defence Agency (EDA), under the auspices of the European Union, and from the discussions at the European Defence Innovation Days (EDID) at the end of May of this year on the challenges and opportunities of connecting technological innovation and capability development.
The day of innovation in defense proposed by the Commission would be October 13, the date on which more than 1 billion viewers watched live the rescue of the 33 miners trapped almost 700 meters deep in the north of our country, a feat that was made possible thanks to a prototype designed and manufactured by Chileans from the public and private sectors.
In addition to the above, during the pandemic, thanks to the development of dual innovation strategies, breathing equipment was developed that allowed a response to the emergency, saving lives.
“Dual-use technologies tend to create enabling conditions for many technological developments focused on defense to be subsequently transferred to society with adaptations for the development of technological platforms (…) generating them is clearly one of the main components in the development of technology and innovation in developed countries and particularly in countries like the United States or important countries in the European Community, it constitutes an important fraction of GDP,” Richter noted.
Text: CRUCH Communications
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