NATO STO and DIANA Deepen Partnership with Updated MoU

The Updated MoU: What Changed and Why It Matters

On 19 March 2026, Mr Steen Søndergaard — NATO Chief Scientist and Chair of the Science and Technology Board (STB) at the NATO Science and Technology Organization (STO) — and Ms Jyoti Hirani-Driver, Acting Managing Director of the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA), signed an updated Memorandum of Understanding in London. The original MoU, signed on 19 October 2023 in Brussels by Dr Bryan Wells and Professor Deeph Chana, established the baseline for STO–DIANA cooperation. This update revisits the general terms and conditions to deepen what was initially a framework agreement into something with operational specificity.

The expanded scope covers four concrete areas. First, STO will contribute directly to DIANA Strategic Direction, Challenge Formation, and support for DIANA Challenge Programs — meaning that STO’s scientific and technical advisory capacity now feeds into the front end of DIANA’s innovation pipeline, not just the validation back end. Second, DIANA gains participation in Science and Technology Board meetings, the governing body that sets the STO Collaborative Programme of Work. Third, the updated MoU strengthens the Validation, Verification & Accreditation (VV&A) community — a critical function for any dual-use technology seeking adoption into NATO military capability. Fourth, specific provisions now govern DIANA’s engagement with STO Scientific and Technical Committees, the panels and groups where national subject-matter experts conduct the Alliance’s collaborative research programme.

The inclusion of the Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) — STO’s executive body based in La Spezia, Italy, which also serves as a DIANA Test Centre — under the same framework is not merely administrative housekeeping. CMRE operates research vessels, maintains underwater test ranges, and fields prototype autonomous systems. Bringing CMRE explicitly under the STO–DIANA cooperation umbrella means that DIANA-funded innovators working on maritime defence technologies can access NATO’s own experimental infrastructure, not just national test facilities. For companies developing autonomous mine countermeasures, underwater sensor networks, or maritime explosive ordnance disposal robotics, this is a material improvement in the technology readiness pathway.

NATO’s S&T Strategy: The Policy Architecture Behind the MoU

The updated MoU does not exist in isolation. It serves as one implementation mechanism for the NATO Science & Technology Strategy, released in June 2025, which supersedes the previous 2018 strategy. The new strategy reflects the STO’s assessment of science and technology macro trends important for the Alliance over the next 20 years, as outlined in its 2025–2045 horizon report.

Mr Søndergaard, who took up the NATO Chief Scientist appointment on 1 July 2025, has made implementation of the S&T Strategy a first-year priority. His stated focus includes ensuring the Alliance gains advantage from technology to outperform adversaries, advising on the newly endorsed strategy, enhancing STO’s contribution to NATO’s innovation and capability development, and embedding feedback mechanisms between S&T outputs and operational needs. The STO–DIANA MoU update is one of the first visible institutional products of that implementation effort.

For WOME practitioners, the S&T Strategy carries particular relevance because it establishes the principle that dual-use technology adoption must connect to operational requirements. The perennial challenge in ammunition and explosives safety has been the gap between laboratory research (typically conducted within STO panels such as AVT — Applied Vehicle Technology and national research establishments) and fielded capability. DIANA’s accelerator model — which in 2026 selected its largest-ever cohort of 150 innovators across ten challenge areas — offers a potential bridge, provided the validation pathway is robust enough to satisfy the safety and qualification standards that ammunition systems demand.

STO Governance: Understanding the Institutional Landscape

The STO is NATO’s principal body for science and technology cooperation. Its governance architecture matters for understanding how the DIANA partnership functions in practice. The Science and Technology Board (STB) is the governing body, with national delegates from all NATO nations plus eligible partner countries. Below the STB sit six Scientific and Technical Committees (panels and groups):

The updated MoU’s provision for DIANA engagement with these committees means that innovators from DIANA’s accelerator cohorts could, in principle, present dual-use technologies directly to the national experts who shape NATO’s collaborative research programme. The MSG panel connection is particularly significant for WOME applications: the Validation, Verification & Accreditation community that the MoU specifically strengthens is historically anchored in the MSG domain. VV&A determines whether computational models — including those used for insensitive munitions assessment, quantity–distance calculations, and explosive effects prediction — are fit for purpose. Accelerating VV&A processes for dual-use modelling tools could materially reduce the time from innovation to operational adoption.

DIANA in 2026: Scale and Scope

To assess the practical significance of the STO partnership, it helps to understand DIANA’s current operational footprint. In December 2025, DIANA announced its largest-ever cohort: 150 innovators selected across ten challenge areas for the 2026 Challenge Programme. Regional kick-offs began on 21–22 January 2026 across 16 locations. DIANA’s headquarters are in London (where the updated MoU was signed), with a second headquarters in Tallinn, Estonia.

DIANA’s network has grown substantially. The accelerator sites have risen from 11 to 23, while test centres have expanded from 90 to over 200, spanning 28 Allied nations. Companies selected into DIANA challenge programmes receive access to training, mentoring, testing facilities, and potential funding from the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF) — a €1 billion venture capital fund established by 24 Allied nations.

The ten 2026 challenge areas cover domains including advanced communications, autonomous systems, energy resilience, and sensing — areas where dual-use technologies with potential WOME applications (autonomous EOD robotics, advanced energetic material sensors, AI-driven ammunition condition monitoring) could emerge. The challenge formation process is precisely where the updated MoU’s STO input becomes relevant: STO scientific expertise shaping challenge definitions increases the probability that defence-critical research gaps, rather than commercially attractive but operationally marginal topics, drive DIANA’s innovation pipeline.

The WOME Dimension: Where Innovation Meets Ammunition Reality

The STO–DIANA partnership has theoretical relevance across all defence technology domains. But for WOME professionals, the practical question is direct: can this institutional framework accelerate the development and fielding of technologies that address the Alliance’s ammunition production, safety, and stockpile management challenges?

The Ammunition Production Crisis

NATO’s munitions industrial base remains under acute strain. The Alliance’s three Battle Decisive Munitions (BDM) programmes — multinational procurement frameworks managed through the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) — illustrate both the scale of demand and the production bottleneck:

The €3.2 billion in LBDM contracts managed by the Ammunition Support Partnership underlines the scale of industrial demand. Building on €1.1 billion in firm contracts awarded in 2025, the March 2026 order for 120mm tank ammunition to Rheinmetall represents the first contract under the comprehensive framework agreements covering all major NATO tank platforms. DIANA-funded innovation in manufacturing processes — automated quality inspection using machine vision, predictive maintenance for production lines, or novel energetic material formulations with faster qualification timelines — could, in principle, address the production throughput challenge that these programmes face.

The Safety and Qualification Bottleneck

Production volume alone does not solve the problem. Every munition entering NATO supply chains must satisfy qualification standards governed by AC/326 (the Ammunition Safety Group, CASG) under the Conference of National Armaments Directors (CNAD). The principal qualification framework for energetic materials is STANAG 4170/AOP-7 (Principles and Methodology for the Qualification of Explosive Materials for Military Use, Edition 3). Insensitive munitions policy is governed by STANAG 4439/AOP-39. These qualification processes are time-consuming by design — safety demands thoroughness — but the current production surge has exposed bottlenecks in testing capacity, modelling validation, and national approval throughput.

This is where the STO–DIANA MoU’s emphasis on VV&A matters for WOME. Computational modelling is increasingly used to supplement physical testing in qualification programmes. But models must be validated against experimental data and accredited for specific applications before regulators accept their outputs. The MSG panel’s VV&A community sets the standards for this process across NATO. If DIANA can bring dual-use computational tools — AI-driven material characterisation, digital twin platforms for production lines, machine learning for defect detection — into the VV&A framework more rapidly, qualification timelines for new munitions could compress meaningfully.

MSIAC: The Gap in the Innovation Bridge

A notable absence from the STO–DIANA MoU framework is any explicit mention of the Munitions Safety Information Analysis Center (MSIAC). MSIAC is a NATO body operating under AC/326 (CASG), providing specialist technical consultancy on munitions safety to its 17 member nations. Its seven Areas of Expertise — warhead technology, propulsion technology, materials technology, energetic materials, munitions transport and storage safety, munitions systems, and electromagnetic effects — represent the deepest pool of concentrated WOME knowledge in the Alliance.

MSIAC sits within the STO’s broader ecosystem but operates under AC/326 governance, not the STB. This institutional boundary matters. The STO–DIANA MoU covers STO entities and panels, and explicitly includes CMRE. But MSIAC’s position under CNAD/AC/326 rather than the STB means that DIANA innovators working on munitions-relevant technologies may not have a direct pathway to MSIAC’s technical assessment capability, accident databases (MADx), or energetic materials testing guidance.

For WOME professionals, this gap is consequential. A start-up developing a novel insensitive explosive formulation through a DIANA challenge programme could access STO’s AVT panel expertise and CMRE’s laboratory facilities under the updated MoU. But to assess the formulation against historical accident data, compare its sensitivity characteristics with existing compounds in the MSIAC Energetic Materials Compendium, or benchmark its safety performance using MSIAC’s standardised tools — that pathway remains undefined.

The 17-nation membership of MSIAC — only 14 of which are NATO allies — compounds the issue. Eighteen NATO members have no access to MSIAC services, including nations actively expanding ammunition production capacity (Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Türkiye). If DIANA-funded innovation is to reach the ammunition production lines of all 32 Allied nations, the safety assessment infrastructure needs to match the breadth of the innovation pipeline. An expanded MSIAC membership, or a formal MSIAC–DIANA cooperation agreement paralleling the STO model, would address this structural gap.

The Broader Context: NATO S&T Enterprise Alignment

The STO–DIANA MoU update should be read alongside several concurrent NATO initiatives that collectively reshape the Alliance’s approach to defence technology adoption.

The NATO Innovation Fund, a €1 billion multi-sovereign venture capital fund backed by 24 Allies, provides financial fuel for DIANA-selected innovators. The NIF invests in start-ups and deep-tech funds across the Alliance, with a mandate covering strategic technologies from AI to quantum computing to space. For munitions-related innovation, NIF represents a funding source that traditional defence procurement budgets cannot match for speed and flexibility.

The NATO Chief Scientist Grants Programme, launched under Søndergaard’s tenure, awards up to €500,000 in total for 2026, with individual grants of up to €100,000 for projects spanning approximately six months. While modest in scale, these grants target the early-stage research that STO panels identify as strategically important — precisely the kind of foundational work that DIANA can subsequently accelerate through its challenge programmes.

The Battle Decisive Munitions programmes (LBDM, ABDM, MBDM) provide the demand signal. The NSPA’s €3.2 billion ammunition contract portfolio creates a ready market for innovations that can improve production efficiency, reduce qualification timelines, or enhance safety performance. The STO–DIANA MoU, by connecting the scientific research pipeline to the innovation accelerator, offers a theoretical pathway from laboratory to production line. The practical test will be whether the institutional mechanisms can operate at the speed the ammunition production crisis demands.

ISC Commentary

The updated STO–DIANA MoU is a sensible institutional step that addresses a real coordination gap in NATO’s innovation architecture. By connecting STO’s scientific expertise to DIANA’s accelerator model at the challenge formation stage — rather than only at the testing and validation end — the Alliance improves the probability that innovation investment targets genuine capability gaps.

Three observations warrant attention from WOME practitioners. First, the explicit inclusion of CMRE as both an STO executive body and a DIANA Test Centre sets a precedent. If the model works for maritime research, a comparable arrangement for MSIAC — whether through the same MoU or a parallel instrument — would close the most significant gap in the current framework. Second, the VV&A emphasis is well placed. Computational modelling is already transforming ammunition qualification in nations with advanced digital infrastructure; validating and accrediting these tools at NATO level would prevent a situation where 24 nations each develop separate, incompatible validation frameworks for the same technologies. Third, the MoU’s connection to the S&T Strategy implementation gives it institutional weight beyond a bilateral cooperation document. It signals that the STB — the body that oversees the entire STO research programme — is invested in making the DIANA relationship operational, not ceremonial.

The risk is institutional complexity. NATO’s committee structure already struggles with the pace of technological change. Adding DIANA participation to STB meetings, embedding STO expertise in challenge formation, and strengthening VV&A — all simultaneously — demands sustained attention from national delegates and secretariat staff who are already managing expanding workloads. The measure of success will not be the MoU itself, but whether, by mid-2027, a DIANA-funded technology has demonstrably shortened a qualification or production timeline for a munition entering the Alliance stockpile through LBDM, ABDM, or MBDM.