Don’t Blow It! Safely eliminating chemical and biological munitions on the battlefield
Updated 9 October 2018
© Crown copyright 2018
This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.
Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.
This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dont-blow-it-safely-eliminating-chemical-and-biological-munitions-on-the-battlefield/dont-blow-it-safely-eliminating-chemical-and-biological-munitions-on-the-battlefield
1. Summary
This Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) competition is seeking proposals for novel and innovative technologies and approaches to access, disable and/or irreversibly destroy chemical and biological munitions, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and bulk agents in challenging environments.
The competition has an initial £500,000 to fund multiple proof-of-concept proposals at low Technology Readiness Levels (TRL). Additional funding of £1.5 million may be available depending on the outcome of the initial funding phase. The competition will launch at an event in London on the 26 September 2018.
It is joint funded by the UK Ministry of Defence and the US Department of Defense, and will operate under an existing memorandum of understanding between both nations.
2. The competition
Under the Chemical Weapons Convention all member states are obligated to destroy any chemical weapons they own or possess, or that they abandoned on the territory of another member state.
There is an increasing focus on developing a toolkit of novel and innovative options to enable rapid, effective and irreversible destruction of smaller caches of chemical and biological weapons discovered in resource-limited environments.
Whilst destruction technologies exist, they are not appropriate for use in all circumstances. Through this competition we want to investigate novel or innovative new concepts or adapt current technologies. We expect these solutions will ultimately enable destruction methods to be more rapid, effective and flexible than those used for large stockpiles, and reduce logistical support requirements, whilst maximising ease of operation, transportability and ruggedness of the equipment. These improved capabilities will allow us to address a greater breadth of threats and in a wider range of circumstances.
There are three main areas of interest for this competition:
2.1 Access
- how to gain access to munitions, IEDs and bulk containers without relying on the original design features, such as filling ports, which may or may not be present
2.2 Disable
- how to prevent munitions, IEDs and bulk agent being used as intended either temporarily or permanently
2.3 Destroy
- how to permanently and irreversibly destroy munitions, IEDs and bulk agents
3. Expression of Interest
The competition will formally launch at an event in London at 1pm on 26 September 2018. Registration for this event has now closed, however if you wish to attend, please contact accelerator@dstl.gov.uk and we will endeavor to add you to the delegates list. If you are accepted to attend the event, you will be sent full details and an agenda.