In a new step to strengthen its defence technology and industrial base, the Polish government has formalised funding for another batch of strategic projects under the PERUN programme (New Technologies in the Field of National Security and Defence), an initiative aimed at accelerating the development of critical capabilities for the Polish Armed Forces in areas such as drones, counter-drone systems, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems and critical infrastructure protection.<\/p>\n
X post by Ministerstwo Obrony Narodowej<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The signing ceremony for the new agreements took place on 23 July at the Polish Army Museum in Warsaw, with the participation of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence W\u0142adys\u0142aw Kosiniak-Kamysz, and Deputy Minister Cezary Tomczyk.<\/p>\n
In this new round, 14 projects were selected, receiving nearly 351 million zlotys (approximately USD 96 million at current exchange rates). With this addition, the PERUN programme has reached cumulative funding of approximately USD 198 million allocated to Polish universities, research institutes and defence technology companies. Subsequently, Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed that the programme now encompasses 29 projects with total funding of close to USD 206 million.<\/p>\n
During the event, Tusk stated that Poland continues to advance towards its goal of building “the largest military force in this part of Europe”, emphasising that this process requires leveraging both the strengthening of the national industry and the country’s scientific capacity to develop proprietary technologies.<\/p>\n
Drones and emerging technologies as a priority<\/p>\n
Polish authorities made it clear that the programme’s focus responds directly to the transformations taking place on the modern battlefield, particularly drawing on lessons learned from the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
“We are making our goal a reality of investing to the maximum in Polish research. Not just to develop prototypes, but to subsequently bring them into large-scale production. Drones, counter-drone systems, long-range systems, artificial intelligence and satellite surveillance are our priorities today,” said Defence Minister W\u0142adys\u0142aw Kosiniak-Kamysz.<\/p>\n
The head of the Ministry of Defence also underscored that the Ukrainian experience demonstrated the strategic impact of unmanned systems across all operational domains.<\/p>\n
According to his explanation, the evolution began with the use of naval surface and underwater drones to neutralise part of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and subsequently expanded to the mass employment of unmanned aerial and ground vehicles, capable even of striking critical infrastructure located hundreds of kilometres behind the front line.<\/p>\n
Consequently, the projects funded by PERUN span capabilities for operations on land, air, sea, cyberspace and space, reinforcing a multi-domain vision of warfare.<\/p>\n
Artificial intelligence, swarms and counter-drone defence<\/p>\n
Among the selected initiatives are developments related to artificial intelligence applied to reconnaissance and command support, autonomous systems, counter-drone technologies, new ballistic materials, critical infrastructure protection, battlefield medicine, and capabilities for detecting chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats.<\/p>\n
Deputy Minister Cezary Tomczyk highlighted some of the projects considered most innovative:<\/p>\n
A laser-based counter-drone system, designed to neutralise unmanned aerial vehicles without resorting to conventional munitions.OSKAR, a system that will allow a single operator to control an entire swarm of unmanned ground vehicles.An autonomous system for the protection of the Baltic Sea, aimed at monitoring ports and critical infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Tomczyk also illustrated the change in scale that Polish investment in unmanned capabilities is experiencing.<\/p>\n
While in 2023 the country allocated around USD 27 million to military drones, by 2026 the planned investment stands at approximately USD 6.85 billion in drones and counter-drone systems.<\/p>\n
Building a national technology base<\/p>\n
One of the central aspects of PERUN is that developments remain in the hands of Polish scientific institutions and companies, strengthening the country’s technological autonomy.<\/p>\n
Among the beneficiaries are the Military University of Technology, the Institute of Aviation Technology of the Air Force, the Naval Academy, the Air Force Academy, the Military Medical Institute, the Military Institute of Armoured and Automotive Technology, the Military Institute of Armament Technology, and the Military Institute of Chemistry and Radiometry, as well as national defence industry companies.<\/p>\n
X post by W\u0142adys\u0142aw Kosiniak-Kamysz<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This initiative is complemented by other programmes being pursued by Warsaw to modernise its Armed Forces. Among them, the SAN counter-drone system stands out, for which a contract worth close to USD 3.8 billion was awarded earlier this year, aimed at deploying the largest integrated anti-drone shield in Europe in response to the growing threat posed by unmanned systems.<\/p>\n
Poland awards a $3.8 billion contract to create Europe\u2019s largest anti-drone wall<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a new step to strengthen its defence technology and industrial base, the Polish government has formalised funding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[395,1711,11821,1729,5287,452,11822,9,1040],"class_list":["post-18172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-poland","tag-ai","tag-air-defence","tag-anti-drone","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-c-uas","tag-drones","tag-perun","tag-poland","tag-polish-armed-forces"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}