Activating South Australia’s Defence Innovation Ecosystem

The Defence Innovation Partnership launched the Activator Fund in June 2023 – a program designed to speed up the translation of innovative defence technology into real world capability for the Australian Defence Force.

This round of the Activator Fund, with a total of $2.4m available, will focus on two themes.

  1. Understanding and countering influence (up to $800,000 in funding available)
  2. Scalable distributed active sensing and sensemaking systems (up to $1.6 million in funding available)

Proposals will be sought from consortia led by South Australian universities and industry and involving Department of Defence partners and other national and international partners. Successful applicants will be required to provide matching co-contributions. Consortia will have the opportunity to participate in a co-design process for proposal development.

Applications for the fund will open on 25 June 2024 with a closing date of 15 August 2024.

Please review the following prior to completing an application form:

For any enquiries regarding DIP Activator, please email enquiries@defenceinnovationpartnership.com.

If you are interested in hearing about the challenges, meeting potential project partners and learn about the grant application and selection process, information sessions are being held:

Be sure to check this page for updated guideline documents and FAQs following the information sessions.

Understanding and countering influence information session

Note: The information session was held on Friday 21 June.

Scalable distributed active sensing and sensemaking information session

Note: The information session was held on Friday 28 June.

Understanding and Countering Influence

The activities funded under this theme will be aligned with priorities outlined in the National Defence Strategy (up to $800,000 available in total).

Challenge 1: Regional statecraft and influence

Key consideration – to better understand Pacific voices, the tropes and frames, stories and priorities that matter to them and how these impact on their own perspectives regarding regional security and stability, including relationships with other countries.

Challenge 2: Digital and open-source methods

Key consideration – seeking a prototype analytical tool capable of using open-source information, within an accepted legal and ethical framework, that is able to conduct an array of advanced analytics relevant to online sentiment and behaviour. Preference will be given to proposals that have already developed foundational socio­political and psychological frameworks and are able to translate this prior work into a user-friendly tool for analysts that can be trialed within experimental environments and case studies.

Please review the following prior to completing an application form:

Scalable distributed active sensing and sensemaking systems

Scalable distributed active sensing and sensemaking systems (up to $1.6 million available in total)

This theme will focus on the development of innovative distributed sensing and sense making capabilities to support improved early warning, situational understanding, and predictive analysis to inform appropriate actions. The challenge will focus on improvements to information architectures, edge computing, data fusion, and modelling and simulation, as well as integration, while employing currently available sensors (or those of high technology maturity), platforms and network capabilities. Any proposals should consider a pathway towards a future capability that is scalable, adaptable, reliable, mobile, and affordable. The challenge use case is the protection of large, fixed infrastructure and the potential impacts from a chemical hazard through a distributed active sensing and control system that can be expanded to include many sensor nodes. Key aims are to provide near real time situational awareness updates and to reduce human intervention through autonomous data collection and fusion.

Please review the following prior to completing an application form:

Funded projects

The Activator Fund builds on South Australia’s research and development strengths and was established with the aim to speed up the translation of technology into operational Defence capabilities.

The first Activator Fund theme aligned with the undersea warfare and trusted autonomy priorities of the Defence Innovation, Science and Technology program.

The first theme of Remote undersea surveillance data processing, analysis and networking (now closed) was awarded to Defence software firm Acacia.

Acacia received $1.6 million for the project, Enhancing the RAN’s Undersea Surveillance Minimum Viable Capability which aims to improve operational performance by increasing the accuracy and range of automatic detection, tracking, and localisation of undersea threats.

The project is also supported by the University of Adelaide, University of South Australia, Curtin University and Defence Science and Technology Group.

Two projects were each awarded $400,000 under the second theme of Understanding and Countering Influence (now closed).

Mapping Pacific Networks, led by the University of Adelaide and supported by Consunet and Defence Science and Technology Group, focused on developing Defence engagement programs in the Pacific Island regions by mapping networks and influence in the region.

Understanding and Countering Online Influence will develop a model and prototype tool to help Defence end-users understand how online communities and informal networks evolve over time. This project was led by the University of Adelaide and supported by Flinders University and Fivecast.

Round three (now closed) focused on Scalable Distributed Acting Sensing and Sensemaking Systems, with Fleet Space Technologies receiving $1.6 million for the Sensor-based Environmental sense-making Network for Threat Response and Information (SENTRI) project.

SmartSat CRC, Safety from Space, University of South Australia, Insight via Artificial Intelligence, Swordfish Computing, and DSTG have partnered with Fleet.