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Western Australia’s push to diversify its economy and grow a globally competitive defence sector has stepped up, with the 2025 Defence and Research Teaming grant program now open for applications.
Run by Defence West’s Defence Science Centre, the Defence and Research Teaming (DaRT) program offers grants of up to $200,000 to help researchers and industry partners turn innovative defence concepts into real-world capability.
Designed to fast-track early stage ideas, DaRT encourages collaboration between universities, defence industry and government, focusing on solutions that meet emerging operational challenges across the defence capability life cycle.
This year’s grant round is open to participants of Exercise Western Dawn 2025, a cutting-edge defence innovation event led by the Australian Army and Curtin University. The exercise brings together multidisciplinary teams from Defence, academia, and industry to workshop creative responses to modern military problems.
Successful applicants will be able to refine and expand on their Western Dawn proposals, using DaRT funding to test, develop and mature concepts that could directly strengthen Australia’s defence capability.
An independent panel will assess projects based on novelty, feasibility, value for money, impact and collaboration, ensuring funding goes to ideas with genuine strategic and economic potential.
Defence Industries Minister Paul Papalia said the initiative was central to the Cook government’s plan to grow WA’s defence ecosystem and broaden the state’s industrial base.
“We’re working to make defence Western Australia’s second biggest industry after mining, creating jobs, driving innovation and diversifying our economy beyond the resources cycle,” Minister Papalia said.
“The DaRT initiative helps de-risk new defence technologies, mature cutting-edge concepts and build sovereign capability. By backing early ideas, we’re giving local innovators the chance to turn bright concepts into export-ready defence solutions.”
Applications are now open, with full details available at wa.gov.au.
With global demand for advanced defence technologies rising and AUKUS driving unprecedented investment in sovereign capability, the DaRT program underscores WA’s ambition to be a national hub for defence innovation, where research meets real-world impact.
