Chilean Navy invites researchers to do science within the institution

PROA I+D, open for applications until July 24, seeks to collaborate with people engaged in research in Chile by providing them with the spaces they need to carry out work of mutual interest. In doing so, it fosters an environment of innovation and progress that will benefit not only the Navy but society as a whole.

Strengthening the Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation (CTCI) system in Chile is a cross-cutting task involving many organizations. It is a commitment shared by defense institutions such as the Chilean Navy (Armada de Chile), which, together with Know Hub Chile, is moving forward with a new program: PROA I+D.

Until July 24, PROA I+D will receive research initiatives that need the Chilean Navy in order to be carried out. The institution’s interest in the research will be assessed, as well as the support in resources and testing spaces the projects need to apply for national or international funding. The teams selected in this initiative will receive support from the institution for R&D (research and development) activities and for securing public funding.

A space for testing, piloting and validation

In Chile, there are approximately 16,348 people engaged in R&D, according to the 2022 Survey on R&D Expenditure and Personnel, by the Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation. It is a growing group that needs workspaces with the right conditions to make that research fruitful.

The Chilean Navy offers those conditions. This new program seeks to connect the institution with those conducting research in the country through applied research of mutual interest in which the Chilean Navy can provide unique spaces for testing, piloting and validation. The goal is to boost research and development by fostering systematic collaboration between defense and the CTCI ecosystem

The director of the Naval Polytechnic Academy, Captain Fabián González, says the program is aimed at research groups that have conducted or are conducting research and lack a clinical field or a place to test that work. “The Navy offers itself so they can carry out this task, as long as it aligns with the institution’s interests,” he says.

The Chilean Navy has a presence throughout the national territory. It also operates in a variety of areas across different dimensions of the territory, which is why it is of great interest to address problems, opportunities or challenges that are relevant to the institution and that may span different fields of knowledge.

Innovation in Defense

The executive director of Know Hub Chile, Javier Ramírez, explains that PROA I+D grew out of the experience of Avante, another innovation program they run with the institution, now in its third edition. In its first edition, in 2020, this program made an impact on the national innovation and technology ecosystem as one of the first initiatives to underscore the importance of innovation in Defense.

While running Avante, working with the teams and pursuing the challenges, Ramírez says, they realized that some applicants had very good ideas that were still far from becoming innovations. “They weren’t entrepreneurship projects but research and development projects, which were very good but had no place in Avante. That’s where we saw an opportunity and thought about giving them a space, and that’s how Proa I+D was born, which calls on universities and research centers to use the resources available to the Navy to advance new developments and new research,” he says.

The program seeks to support scientific and technological research projects backed by evidence supporting a hypothesis for applying a technology, product or service, and which, as the research progresses, achieve validation through a proof of concept, model or prototype evaluated under laboratory conditions or at small scale within two years.

The program has four stages. The first involves identifying and selecting research proposals that are of institutional interest or show potential for development in that area. In the second phase, beneficiary discovery and support through institutional spaces will take place: the pertinence and relevance of the problem or challenge to be addressed will be validated, and the spaces needed to carry out the proposed applied research and development will be identified and explored. In the third stage, applying for funding, the teams will work together with the Navy to define the application model for the available competitive funds. Finally, in the fourth stage, execution of the R&D project, once the competitive funds are awarded and the project is approved, it will be carried out as planned and agreed in the application.