AID Standard Thesis Call for Proposals

Doctoral thesis funding is available to academics in France for projects relating to civil and/or military defence. Partnership funding opportunities including with applicants in the UK are also available.

The Agence de l’Innovation de Défense (AID – Defence Innovation Agency) is a defence organisation that operates under the French Ministry of Armed Forces. Its main objectives are to direct innovations in the area of defence, to encourage and pick up innovations from the civilian world, to promote and develop innovations and to identify and put in place innovative defence processes. The Agency provides funding for research projects with links to their areas of interest.

In order to support research on topics linked to defence, AID offers funding for doctoral theses. Research on any of the following priority topics are welcome:

• Biology, health and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) defence.
• Fluids, structures.
• People and systems.
• Information engineering.
• Artificial intelligence (AI).
• Robotics.
• Cybersecurity.
• Maritime engineering and geosciences.
• Materials.
• Energy and energetic materials.
• Nanotechnology, sensors and components.
• Sound and radioelectric waves.
• Photonics.
• Human and social sciences.

Detailed information on each topic is available here.

In addition to these topics, AID is also interested in research relating to the following areas, as defined by 2022 ministerial strategies:

• Control of the seabed.
• Climate and defence (including the topics of green defence, energy transition and climate security).

For this programme, numerous co-funding opportunities are available through a range of different partnerships, including:

• France/UK collaborations.
• Partnership with Aix-Marseille Université (AMU) and Inria.
• AID-CNRS agreement.
• AID-ONERA partnership.