{"id":363,"date":"2025-06-10T13:08:56","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T13:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/karenbarnard.com\/?p=363"},"modified":"2025-06-11T13:22:52","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T13:22:52","slug":"defence-firms-must-adopt-a-flexible-secrecy-to-innovate-for-european-rearmament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/karenbarnard.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/10\/defence-firms-must-adopt-a-flexible-secrecy-to-innovate-for-european-rearmament\/","title":{"rendered":"Defence firms must adopt a \u2018flexible secrecy\u2019 to innovate for European rearmament"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the face of US President Donald Trump\u2019s wavering commitments and Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s inscrutable ambitions, the talk in European capitals is all about rearmament.<\/p>\n

To that end, the European Commission has put forward an \u20ac800\u00a0billion spending scheme designed to \u201cquickly and significantly increase expenditures in defence capabilities\u201d, in the words of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.<\/p>\n

But funding is only the first of many challenges involved when pursuing military innovation. Ramping up capabilities \u201cquickly and significantly\u201d will prove difficult for a sector that must keep pace with rapid technological change.<\/p>\n

Of course, defence firms don\u2019t have to do it alone: they can select from a wide variety of potential collaborators, ranging from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to agile start-ups. Innovative partnerships, however, require trust and a willingness to share vital information, qualities that appear incompatible with the need for military secrecy.<\/p>\n

That is why rearming Europe requires a new approach to secrecy.<\/p>\n

A paper<\/a> I co-authored with Jonathan Langlois of HEC and Romaric Servajean-Hilst of KEDGE Business School examines the strategies used by one leading defence firm (which we, for our own secrecy-related reasons, renamed \u201cGlobaldef\u201d) to balance open innovation<\/a> with information security. The 43 professionals we interviewed \u2013 including R&D managers, start-up CEOs and innovation managers \u2013 were not consciously working from a common playbook. However, their nuanced and dynamic approaches could serve as a cohesive role model for Europe\u2019s defence sector as it races to adapt to a changing world.<\/p>\n

How flexible secrecy enables innovation<\/h2>\n

Our research took place between 2018 and 2020. At the time, defence firms looked toward open innovation to compensate for the withdrawal of key support. There was a marked decrease in government spending on military R&D across the OECD<\/a> countries. However, even though the current situation involves more funding, the need for external innovation remains prevalent to speed up access to knowledge.<\/p>\n

When collaborating to innovate, firms face what open innovation scholars have termed \u201cthe paradox of openness\u201d<\/a>, wherein the value to be gained by collaborating must be weighed against the possible costs of information sharing. In the defence sector \u2013 unlike, say, in consumer products \u2013 being too liberal with information could not only lead to business losses but to grave security risks for entire nations, and even prosecution for the executives involved.<\/p>\n

Although secrecy was a constant concern, Globaldef\u2019s managers often found themselves in what one of our interviewees called a \u201cblurred zone\u201d where some material could be interpreted as secret, but sharing it was not strictly off-limits. In cases like these, opting for the standard mode in the defence industry \u2013 erring on the side of caution and remaining tight-lipped \u2013 would make open innovation impossible.<\/p>\n

\n \"\"
\n <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A weekly e-mail in English featuring expertise from scholars and researchers. It provides an introduction to the diversity of research coming out of the continent and considers some of the key issues facing European countries. Get the newsletter!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Practices that make collaboration work<\/h2>\n

Studying transcripts of more than 40 interviews along with a rich pool of complementary data (emails, PowerPoint presentations, crowdsourcing activity, etc.), we discerned that players at Globaldef had developed fine-grained practices for maintaining and modulating secrecy, even while actively collaborating with civilian companies.<\/p>\n

Our research identifies these practices as either cognitive<\/em> or relational<\/em>. Cognitive practices acted as strategic screens, masking the most sensitive aspects of Globaldef\u2019s knowledge without throttling information flow to the point of preventing collaboration.<\/p>\n

Depending on the type of project, cognitive practices might consist of one or more of the following:<\/p>\n