Innovation and R&D have always been the essential foundations of a strong, sustainable defence industry. Australia’s 2016 Defence White Paper, Defence Industry Policy Statement (DIPS) and Defence Integrated Investment Program (DIIP) acknowledge the importance of successful Defence R&D and innovation to the nation’s defence industry and thus to Australian defence policy. The 2020 Defence Force Structure Plan reinforced these foundations.
EX2 was set up by Dr Gregor Ferguson, a defence industry and innovation analyst and consultant, to make a useful contribution in Australia’s new and welcoming defence business environment.
EX2 helps innovators in Defence, the research sector and industry, and especially SMEs, by providing news and insight about innovation in Defence and adjacent sectors such as space, aerospace and resources.
Gregor Ferguson writes, teaches, advises and runs a national program designed to encourage and reward innovators in the defence, aerospace and maritime domains in both industry and the research and academic communities.
View his bio here (PDF opens in new window).
Dr Gregor Ferguson, Ph.D, BA (Hons), MRAeS
Seven Australian companies have been awarded grants worth a total of $3.8 million under the Defence Global Competitiveness program and the Sovereign Industrial Capability Priority program. The Australian Government grants focus on building a sovereign Defence industry, directed towards strategic…
Boeing and its Australian subsidiary Insitu Pacific has demonstrated operational applications of its autonomous search, detection and classification capabilities at EX Talisman Sabre. The pioneering technology delivers near real-time intelligence to the warfighter. It combines Boeing’s machine learning, AI and…
Ten Lockheed Martin-built satellites have successfully been deployed into low-Earth orbit in support of the Space Development Agency's (SDA) Tranche 0 Transport Layer (T0TL) mission. SDA's T0TL is a proliferated low-Earth orbit (LEO) constellation that will demonstrate low-latency communication and…
Swedish defence sector prime Saab AB has acquired UK-based AI and autonomy specialist BlueBear Systems Group Ltd. BlueBear, which employs 65 staff at its Bedford, UK, base is a world-leading provider of AI-enabled autonomous swarm systems for complex defence and…
Thales Australia has signed a university-wide Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) to increase the impact of collaboration between the two organisations. The MoU builds upon the long-standing relationship between the two. By fostering ethical,…
Canberra-based Lockheed Martin Australia has been named winner of the first stage Defence’s $765 million Project AIR6500 Ph.1. This is expected to be a multi-billion dollar, multi-phase program. Defence says it is also accelerating the ADF’s Medium-Range Ground-Based Air Defence…
The Royal Australian Navy will purchase new, smart sea mines to reinvigorate Defence’s maritime mining capability. The new mines will be supplied by Italian firm RWM Italia, a subsidiary of German firm Rheinmetall AG, and will be deployable from submarines,…
“Those words — warfighter, deliver, speed, and scale — are at the core of how Secretary Austin and I have sought to drive innovation throughout the Defense Department, especially in this enduring era of strategic competition with the Peoples’ Republic…
Australian online newsletter Defence Connect reports that Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman will compete to develop and build the US Navy’s sixth-generation, carrier-based strike fighter under the F/A-XX program, also known as the New Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program,…
During EX Indo-Pacific Endeavour the Royal Australian Navy, Defence Science Technology Group and Republic of Singapore Navy met to discuss the development and evolution of autonomous maritime systems. The discussions in Singapore centred around a shared interest in Robotics, Autonomous…
