Dstl will be showcasing its advances in S&T and how its Preparing the Future Force at DSEI UK.

The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) is once again pleased to be partnering with DSEI UK.

The overarching theme of this year’s show is Preparing the Future Force. This chimes particularly strongly for us at Dstl, the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD’s) in-house science and technology (S&T) agency, as it’s a key pillar of our strategy.

Delivering this exciting and challenging agenda is a national effort – working with our delivery partners in industry and academia being vital to securing mission success.

We collaborate with more than 2,000 innovative organisations of all shapes and sizes in our supply chain, safeguarding and supporting around 10,000 jobs across the nation, investing over GBP450 million last year alone with these partners on cutting-edge S&T.

Our ambition is to secure strategic advantage for UK defence and security through S&T to keep the UK safe and help it prosper, working as one Dstl with our valued supply chain.

You cannot achieve a strategic military advantage without the effective exploitation of S&T.

This is why investment in S&T is not a discretionary activity for the MoD nor one that takes place on the fringes.

It is the lifeblood of every capability the armed forces have today and will need in the future.

But more than that, it is an arena of strategic competition in its own right. ​In 2025 and beyond, S&T is not just part of the fight. It is a battlefield of its own.

At DSEI UK, Dstl will be focusing on AI, robotics and autonomous systems, and how we integrate multiple and complex systems at scale to create advanced capabilities that are far more impactful than the sum of their individual parts.

All of these also clearly speak to a sub-theme of this year’s event – agile acquisition and supply chain security.

Working as one with our delivery partners, we need to collectively transform our mind-set and our operational footing to respond to the challenges we face.

We need to be constantly upgrading capabilities in weeks and months, rather than years and decades.

We need greater focus on software, systems and their integration– the ‘bits you cannot see’. And we need to be able to generate mass and field prototypes at a pace and scale we have never seen before.

Our partners in industry and academia are central to succeeding in this mission.

We have numerous examples where working as one Dstl in closer partnership with supply chain is delivering generational shifts in capability such as directed energy weapons, air survivability, and AI and autonomous systems under AUKUS. 

Projects such as these are the blueprint of the future relationship and outcomes we need. One Dstl, working across MoD with industry and academia as ‘One Defence’. Shared missions, shared effort, and shared success.

Together, we can deliver mission success through S&T advantage.

We look forward to meeting you at DSEI UK in September.