Where the grass is greener: the other side of defence

Defence spending in the developed world is now scrutinised more carefully than during the Cold War; at the same time, defence engineers are waking up to the fact that the commercial sector has overtaken them in many fields. Changes in the world order, coupled with rapid developments in technology have encouraged many governments to examine the relationship between defence research and civil applications. Traditionally, advanced technology often arises from defence research and may subsequently spin off for civil use. Today, however, the civil technology base dominates the market and future developments in many generic technologies. The UK and many other countries are now encouraging increased collaboration between civil and defence research increased alignment and collaboration between the civil and defence sectors leads to improved economic benefits, with defence having at least as much to gain from civil spinoff and access to commercial technology