On 15 April 2026, the European Commission released the results of the 2025 call under the European Defence Fund (EDF). Overall, in 2025, the Commission invested some €1.07 billion in 57 defence projects, which demonstrates the continued popularity and relevance of the EU-level funding tool. The Commission reports as part of its rollout of the 2025 EDF projects that some 634 unique legal entities from 26 member states and Norway and Ukraine are part of projects that will feed into critical defence domains such as artificial intelligence (AI), cyber, sensors, drones and flagship areas such as air and missile defence, space and (counter-)drones. From 2021 to 2027, the European Union (EU) will invest €7.3 billion in defence research and development (R&D) under the Fund.
In this respect, the 2025 results constitute a sufficient period – five years – to make preliminary observations on the functioning of the Fund. In this CSDS Policy Brief, we will first look at the 2025 results using publicly available data provided by the EU, before then comparing the results across five years since 2021. We are interested in examining where EDF financial support is being channelled, which innovators coordinate projects and which member states participate in EDF projects. We also give some indication of the diversity of innovators that participate in the Fund.
CSDS Policy Brief 12/2026
Daniel Fiott 