The testing and evaluation competition offers up to £1 million for future advantage, provided innovation can first prove it deserves to meet the future by completing the paperwork that has been guarding the present.
The Defence and Security Accelerator published Delivering Future Advantage Through Testing and Evaluation, Phase 1, on 11 November. Funded by the Ministry of Defence Test and Evaluation Transformation Programme, it seeks deployable testing and evaluation capability and regulatory solutions.
Testing and evaluation competition asks innovation to wait
At the fictional Directorate of Promising Things, procurement lead Coral Spreadsheet welcomed the announcement. She laughed while placing a 46 page application form between the innovation and the opportunity. The form immediately requested evidence that the applicant had completed the form correctly.
The testing and evaluation competition offers up to £1 million excluding VAT for innovative proposals. Applicants must therefore show that their idea can improve the future, survive testing and fit neatly into the category selected by a committee that has not yet agreed what the category means.
Fictional testing coordinator Rupert Buoy laughed as he labelled a plastic tray REAL WORLD. It contained three clipboards, a ruler and a decision tree that ended with the words “seek further clarification”. The tray was then submitted for assessment.
The competition promises a route from clever idea to useful capability. Between those points sits the familiar obstacle course of compliance, governance, financial checks and a meeting to establish whether the previous meeting had identified a next step. That step will now need testing.
Testing and evaluation competition puts the future in a queue
Regulatory solutions are also eligible, which is excellent news for anyone who has watched a promising invention expire beneath a rule explaining that it cannot be tested until it has already passed the test it was waiting to take.
Coral has divided the future into two columns. One lists capabilities that might be deployable. The other lists the evidence required to prove they are deployable. Both columns are awaiting approval from the committee responsible for deciding whether columns are an efficient way to manage uncertainty.
The process will test ideas properly before anyone relies on them. It will also test whether an idea can withstand testing, evaluate whether evaluation added value and procure a report confirming that everyone remains cautiously interested. This is not delay. It is future advantage being professionally escorted towards a holding pattern.
Eventually, innovation may reach the real world. Reception has already been notified. It is undergoing testing and evaluation to determine whether visitors are ready to enter.
Source: Defence and Security Accelerator.
