Overview
- The Regulatory Innovation Office has formally added robotics and defence to its priority list to cut red tape and accelerate deployment of autonomous systems.
- The government launched a £52 million competition for around five Robotics Adoption Hubs, with each hub to receive at least £2 million per year for four years and operations expected to start in the second half of 2026.
- Innovate UK will run the competition, giving universities, businesses and public bodies the chance to host hubs that provide expertise, demonstrations and industry links.
- A new online portal opened on Friday for an initial four-week window so companies can report specific regulatory barriers holding back testing and deployment.
- RIO will coordinate across regulators to streamline overlapping approvals, building on work that has already cut complex drone approval times by about 60%, while the policy push aligns with plans to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 and reserve at least 10% of the MoD equipment budget for novel technologies.