Innovation as a skill
Winning the innovation race is seen as a vital part of modern military strategy: maintaining a competitive edge over potential adversaries is one of the key ways of ensuring success in future conflicts. Yet while innovation is an advantage that everyone wants, it’s a concept which nonetheless poses challenges for every player in the defence industry: navies, procurement bodies and industry partners alike.
For firms, the major concerns include financial outlay and risk. That’s certainly true for defence primes and even more so for start-ups and SMEs: developing new tech can be expensive, and all commercial entities need a return on investment. Plus, for organisations new to defence, there are all sorts of security and certification hurdles to overcome.
For navies, well, yes of course they want the latest, best kit. But it has to work properly, dovetail with their existing equipment, and come with adequate training.
And for procurement agencies, the big worries are when to commit, and speed of delivery. With technology evolving ever more rapidly — particularly with regard to smaller, cheaper systems — accelerating acquisition cycles to ensure you’re getting good-value systems which aren’t redundant before they’re even fielded is one of the biggest headaches.
One person well qualified to speak knowledgeably on navigating these challenges is NATO’s Bart Hollants, a speaker at our forthcoming Navy Tech 2026 conference in Gothenburg, Sweden, at the start of February.
Bart chairs the NATO Innovation Network at the alliance’s Allied Command Transformation (ACT) headquarters and describes himself as an ‘innovation broker.’ He’s been at NATO for the last two years and before that worked in the Dutch Army’s innovation cell, having previously completed a Masters degree at the University of Utrecht.
He explained: “I work on fostering innovation as a concept, which is super-versatile. It means getting technology out there; it means capability delivery; it means getting an innovative mindset into military organizations. And it also means innovation is a skill… a teachable skill.”
One size no longer fits all
To frame the essential problem: innovation in commercial industry and in conflict is happening at a much faster pace than traditional military procurement models have been set up to accommodate.
As Bart observed: “Traditional capability development and procurement pathways, which are relatively slow-moving and very deliberate, are no longer fit for the speed of innovation in civilian markets… and what we see in Ukraine on the battlefield.
It doesn’t make them irrelevant: if you’re procuring large-scale capabilities like frigates, armoured battalions, with assets that will last decades, of course you want to be deliberate. But the deliberate way of doing this has multiple steps.
There’s foresighting included: first we figure out what the future looks like. Then we figure out what a potential conflict in the future looks like, then what we need for it. And then we start drafting capability requirements and then ask industry to step in.
That process takes years. And for a frigate, that is not a problem. But if you’re looking at delivering capabilities fast, or addressing urgent requirements or threats, that just doesn’t cut the cake any more.”
The full interview is featured on Navy Leaders as a free download once the short form is filled out: https://navyleaders.com/insight/navy-tech-2026-winning-the-maritime-innovation-race-lessons-from-tfx-baltic/