Development of a digital system for the secure and quick exchange of information related to military mobility
EDF Research Actions
Basic Information
- Identifier
- EDF-2021-PROTMOB-D-DMM
- Programme
- Soldier & logistic systems
- Programme Period
- 2021 - 2027
- Status
- Closed (31094503)
- Opening Date
- September 8, 2021
- Deadline
- December 8, 2021
- Deadline Model
- single-stage
- Budget
- €50,000,000
- Min Grant Amount
- –
- Max Grant Amount
- –
- Expected Number of Grants
- –
- Keywords
- EDF-2021-PROTMOB-D-DMMEDF-2021-PROTMOB-D
Description
- Improved efficiency and speed of the exchange of information related to military mobility. Hence, increased security of the EU Member States.
- Simplification and harmonisation between the EU Member States of the military mobility related information and improved interoperability.
- Enabler for achieving simplified and standardised rules and procedures by no later than 2024 as agreed by the Member States.
- Increased practical cooperation between the EU and NATO on military mobility, which is a flagship area of cooperation between the two organisations.
- Enhanced crisis response and crisis management.
Objective:Timely and accurate logistic information and sharing is required for the efficient management and coordination of multinational logistic networks and hubs. Information management for multinational logistics, including for Military Mobility related information, contributes to enhanced efficiency and effectiveness, notably to the reduction of overall costs and environmental footprint, flexibility of forces, improved interoperability and fair burden sharing between Member States or conservation of scarce local resources.
Specific challenge
The crises in the vicinity of the EU have changed the security situation of the EU Member States and EU needs to respond to those challenges. Inter alia, this significantly increases the importance of functioning and efficient military mobility. The ongoing COVID-19 crisis, although a civilian crisis, has painfully highlighted the gaps in the functioning of logistics in the midst of a crisis. In part, the problem is related to divergent requirements for the exchange of information on military mobility across the Member States. That has led to cumbersome and often slow cross-border movement.
The EU Foreign Affairs Council conclusions from 25 June 2018 put forward several political objectives concerning military mobility. Inter alia, they call on Member States to take action nationally to improve the efficiency of military mobility, and to simplify and standardise the relevant rules and procedures by no later than 2024. The Council conclusions further call for simplified and standardised procedures in order to accelerate border crossing procedures and work towards granting cross border movement permissions, including requests for entry and movement permission for all modes (surface, air and sea) for routine activities within 5 working days. Hence, this constitutes a strategic objective for the Member States.
A particular challenge is that, in practice, the time required to obtain approvals and diplomatic clearances for cross-border movements varies considerably between the EU Member States and the procedures are poorly standardised. Currently various approvals are needed at state, regional and local levels. Furthermore, there is a need to exchange customs related information digitally. As a result, the current situation has made the movement of troops, equipment and supplies slow and cumbersome.
Therefore, digital tools should be utilised to achieve the political objectives of greater simplification, standardisation and rapid issuance of the cross-border movement permits. To this end, a digital system for military mobility will be a key enabler for the political commitments made. Furthermore, military mobility is an area of flagship cooperation between the EU and NATO. The digitalisation efforts would support the work and objectives of both organisations. Therefore, the actions should be coordinated between the two organisations to the extent possible.
Scope:Digitalisation is a key enabler for efficient and speedy military mobility. Digitalisation would also allow for increased standardisation and harmonisation between the Member States. The scope of the action focuses on cross-border movement permissions. Currently, there are several different forms in use across the EU and NATO countries, whereas the authorisations that are needed differ at state, regional and local levels. Diverging rules, in turn, make the permitting procedures cumbersome and time-consuming. A joint ICT system should be used to develop uniform cross-border movement permission documents, which will be tailored to the needs of the participating Member States. Furthermore, there is ongoing work by the Member States and the EDA, which could be used as a point of departure.
The proposal must address the development of digital military mobility information exchange system.
Targeted activities
The proposals must cover the following activities as referred in article 10.3 of the EDF Regulation, not excluding possible upstream and downstream activities eligible for development actions if deemed useful to reach the objectives:
- Studies, such as feasibility studies to explore the feasibility of new or improved technologies, products, processes, services and solutions;
- The design of a defence product, tangible or intangible component or technology as well as the definition of the technical specifications on which such design has been developed which may include partial tests for risk reduction in an industrial or representative environment;
- The development of a model of a defence product, tangible or intangible component or technology, which can demonstrate the element's performance in an operational environment (system prototype);
- The testing of a defence product, tangible or intangible component or technology.
The proposals must address in particular the following objectives:
- Objective 1: Feasibility study, identifying costs and benefits, assessment of the feasibility of possible functionalities and interfaces with the existing systems. Validation of the estimated budget (life cycle costs, including later maintenance costs) and assessment of the duration for the development. Final validation of the feasibility of the functional requirements.
- Objective 2: System Requirement Analysis detailing the needs based on the functional requirements, including analysis of end-user needs and the analysis of existing procedures.
- Objective 3: Development and testing of a digital system for the secure and quick exchange of information related to military mobility. Development and testing to be done in close cooperation with the participating Member States and associated organisations. Training for the end-users and compiling user manuals.
Functional requirements
The Digital Military Mobility System for Cross Border Movement should be designed in line with the following principles:
(1) General:
- Secure and fast cross border military movement digital information exchange between sending and receiving nations from the submission of the request to the final approval and response. The digital system must replace existing channels of communications like e-mail, fax etc. with the purpose of consolidating and speeding up the flow of information and to prevent communications errors.
- One single system for different roles and counterparts related to cross border movement approval process. It may also include military movement management in case where the actual carrier is a private company.
(2) Security:
- Encrypted web based (online) system with a centralised server.
- UNCLASSIFIED level system with restricted access.
- Secure authentication and authorisation of the systems users (two-step authentication).
- Adequate cyber resilience of the system.
- Data integrity and secure data exchange.
- User account management via national account manager (national single point of contact).
- Access to information based on “need to know” principle. Member nation can only see the requests they have submitted or which are sent to them and they do not have access to the other nations´ information.
- Cooperation (as appropriate) with eu-LISA and drawing on their expertise and know-how.
(3) Interoperability and interfaces:
- Cooperation (as appropriate) with NATO and its member states in line with the EDF Regulation
- Interoperability and compatibility with, and allowing for automated (or partly automated) data (Excel/HTML transfer) exchange with:
- NATO LOGFAS EVE (Logistics Functional Area Services, Effective Visible Execution).
- EATC MEAT (Management of European Air Transport).
- Existing and/or under development HNS digital systems and national systems.
- National movement systems
- National customs systems for customs Form 302 authorizations.
- Interoperability with other digital systems as appropriate (for instance EU military customs system, if developed).
- To ensure better data exchange sharing and archiving processes for military products and systems it is envisioned that standards like ISO 10303 and ASD/AIS S-series standards could be beneficial to manage interoperability between user nations.
(4) Military Mobility related documents and information:
- Standardised procedures and formats between sending and receiving nations, including harmonisation and simplification if possible.
- Web based system that would allow the digital exchange of the following military movement information (see drawings in (5) and (6) below):
- To notify, request and approve:
- Permit to Deploy (Request for Visit).
- Diplomatic Clearance for state aircraft.
- Diplomatic Clearance for military vessel.
- Rail permission.
- To create and transfer customs documents (EU and NATO Form 302).
- To create or upload shipping documents (including dangerous good documents).
- To upload additional movement related documents and information according to the specific movement or operation
- Functionality for fast track approvals in the times of crisis. The system should allow for quicker than usual approvals in the time of crisis.
- Functionality to manage civil carrier movements as part of the military movement
- Functionality to facilitate and to analyse lessons learned from military training operations between the countries.
(5) Information hierarchy:
Please refer to calls and conditions Topic EDF-2021-PROTMOB-D-DMM: Development of a digital system for the secure and quick exchange of information related to military mobility, page 156.
(6) Operational layout:
Please refer to calls and conditions Topic EDF-2021-PROTMOB-D-DMM: Development of a digital system for the secure and quick exchange of information related to military mobility, page 157.
Eligibility & Conditions
Conditions
1. Admissibility conditions: described in section 3 of the call document
Proposal page limits and layout: 64 pages for Section 6 + Section 7 of Part B of the Submission form; 2 pages per work package for Section 8 of Part B of the Submission form. Layout conditions as described in the Notice of Part B of the Submission form
2. Eligible countries: described in section 3 of the call document
3. Other eligibility conditions: described in section 3 of the call document
4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion: described in section 3 of the call document
Submission and evaluation processes: described section 3 of the call document and the Online Manual
Award criteria, scoring and thresholds: described in section 3 of the call document
Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement: described in section 3 of the call document
6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants: described in section 3 of the call document
Call documents:
The following documents can be found at this link:
- Calls and conditions
o EDF 2021 call texts and conditions for the calls
- Submission forms*
o Part A: Standard application form (EDF)
o Part A sup: Supplementary application form (EDF)
o Part B: Description of the action (EDF)
o Annex 1 & 2 - Budget tables
o Appendix to Annex 1 & 2, including a correspondence table for applicants and affiliated entities opting for actual indirect costs
o Annex 3 - Declaration of honour (DoH) applicants and affiliated entities
o Annex 4 - IPR on background information
o Annex 5 - Industry related information
o Annex 6 - Declaration of ownership and control
o Annex 7 - Operational capacity and resources
o Annex 8 - Mid-cap self-assessment form
* Final submission forms will be available directly on the submission module in the Funding and Tenders Portal once the calls are open (9 September)
- Guide for applicants
o EDF Guide for applicants
o Guidance on How to complete your Ethics self-assessment
Additional documents:
- Model grant agreements
o EDF actual cost MGA (coming soon)
o EDF lump sum MGA (coming soon)
- Security
o EDF Programme Security Instruction (PSI) (coming soon)
- Regulations
o EU Financial Regulation 2018/1046
- Work programmes
o EDF Work Programme 2022-part 1
- Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment
- Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual
- Funding & Tenders Portal Terms and Conditions
- Funding & Tenders Portal Privacy Statement
Support & Resources
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Online Manual – Step-by-step online guide through the Portal processes from proposal preparation and submission to reporting on your on-going project. Valid for all 2021-2027 programmes.
Latest Updates
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