Proa I+D: the Chilean Navy and Know Hub program that invites researchers to do science with the institution

The new initiative, open for applications until July 24, seeks to collaborate with people engaged in research by providing them with the spaces they need to carry out work of mutual interest. By exploring new horizons in this way, it fosters an environment of innovation and progress that will benefit not only the Navy but society as a whole.

Strengthening Chile’s science, technology, knowledge and innovation (CTCI) system is a cross-cutting task involving a range of 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.

Recently launched at the closing of Avante 3, PROA I+D will receive research initiatives that need the Chilean Navy in order to be carried out. The institution’s interest in each research project will be assessed, as well as the support in resources and testing spaces for projects to apply for national or international funding.

A unique space for testing, piloting and validation

In Chile, there are approximately 16,348 people working in R&D (research and development), 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 spaces with the right conditions to make that research fruitful.

The Chilean Navy meets those conditions. With a presence across the entire country and a wide variety of operating areas, the institution offers unique spaces for testing, piloting and validation.

The director of the Naval Polytechnic Academy, Captain Fabián González, says that “as an Academy we are always developing initiatives that allow us to connect with the civilian world and thus develop solutions to problems the Navy faces, and one of the mechanisms we have found is to develop those that allow us to operate within the innovation ecosystem, such as Proa I+D.”

Through Proa I+D, says the director of the Naval Polytechnic Academy, for researchers who have conducted or are conducting research and lack a clinical field or a place to test their products, “the Navy offers itself so that they can do this work, as long as it aligns with the institution’s interests.” In this way, the program seeks to have researchers in Chile see the institution’s problems and challenges as their own incentives and motivations, making use of its spaces to carry out their work.

Know Hub Chile, the organization that conceived and designed the program together with the Navy, contributes its experts to scouting, proposal selection and implementation. This work is part of Know Hub Chile’s strategic objective of supporting systematic collaboration between defense and the CTCI ecosystem.

The executive director of Know Hub Chile explains that PROA I+D grew out of the Avante experience. While running that program, he says, working with the teams and pursuing the challenges, they realized that some applicants had very good ideas that were still far from becoming reality. “They weren’t entrepreneurial projects but research and development projects, very good ones, that didn’t fit in Avante. That’s where we saw an opportunity and thought of giving them a dedicated space, and that’s how Proa I+D was born, calling on universities and research centers to use the resources available at the Navy to advance new developments and new research,” he says.

The goal of PROA I+D is to provide a space for researchers to develop projects with the Chilean Navy, which makes its testing and piloting spaces available. In addition, the program will offer winners support in applying for national or international funding. The aim is to support scientific and technological research projects that have evidence backing a hypothesis for applying a technology, product or service, and that, as the research progresses, achieve validation through a proof of concept, model or prototype evaluated under laboratory or small-scale conditions within two years.

Applications open until July 24 at: www.knowhub.cl/proa