EU states have formally adopted a €115 million programme to provide rapid and targeted financial support to smaller businesses developing emerging and disruptive defence products.
The Regulation establishing Programme for agile and rapid defence innovation (AGILE) will bring disruptive defence technology from the lab to the field at record speed, providing dedicated support to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), including start-ups and scale ups.
“Ukraine has shown us that innovation and cutting-edge technology can be decisive for defence preparedness and resilience”, said Ireland’s defence minister Helen McEntee, for the EU presidency: “AGILE gives SMEs an additional key instrument to do what they do best, innovate, only faster and at greater scale, turning technological excellence into operational capability.”
The programme will operate with an unprecedented time-to-grant of just four months and for technologies to reach defence forces between 1-3 years. It will support between 20 and 30 projects, providing up to 100% funding for all eligible costs. To facilitate quick innovation, the funding will also allow companies to retroactively claim expenses claimed up to three months prior to the closing of the call for applications.
The work programme will cover two main types of activities: mission-driven development of disruptive defence products and technologies and market delivery by helping defence solutions reach the actual markets.
AGILE has been adopted in record time, in less than seven months after the Commission tabled its proposal in March 2026. The swift adoption reflects EU’s commitment to strengthen Europe’s capacity to innovate.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has demonstrated that success on the battlefield relies on new technologies, from drones and autonomous systems to artificial. Europe’s ability to develop, test, and deploy new technologies and cost-efficient solutions in weeks or months rather than years is now being tested.
AGILE responds to this need by giving innovative smaller players the support and speed they need to bring promising defence solutions to the armed forces. In practice, the programme will support startups and tech innovators with faster, more flexible funding and allow innovations to be deployed as quickly as possible.
The AGILE programme is expected to become fully operational as of early 2027. The Commission is currently preparing the programme’s implementation, which will be monitored and assessed by the Council and the European Parliament.
Proposal for a Regulation on establishing AGILE
White Paper for European Defence – Readiness 2030
