A holistic framework for assessing the uptake potential of EU-funded security research and innovation project results [version 3; peer review: 2 approved, 2 approved with reservations]

The Technology Readiness Level (TRL) has been adopted since 2014 within the European Union (EU) as a metric to evaluate the maturity of results from EU-funded research and innovation projects. This metric is crucial for distinguishing between innovation actions aimed at early-stage innovations and market-ready solutions. Ideally, EU-funded research and innovation projects should lead to the development of innovative concepts and technologies by EU industries, which in turn enhance security capabilities within EU member states. However, there is a notable challenge: the adoption rate of outcomes from EU-funded security research and innovation projects is not as high as expected. The current TRL maturity assessment method is insufficient in exposing the possible cause of the limited uptake by fully pointing out where the development is lacking. The TRL’s limitations include a lack of comprehensive assessment from various perspectives especially in the civil security research and projects, which is necessary to bridge the gap, often referred to as the “valley of death,” between project results and their effective adoption. To address these shortcomings, in the MultiRATE EU research project we propose a holistic framework that enhances the TRL scale by adding additional Readiness Levels (RLs) for a more complete evaluation of security projects. These include the Societal RL (SocRL), Security RL (SecRL), Legal, Privacy and Ethical RL (LPERL), Integration RL (IRL), Commercialisation RL (CRL), and Manufacturing RL (MRL). In this open letter, we explain the background of the design considerations of this framework. Our goal is to define and integrate these seven Readiness Level (RL) dimensions and an investment forecasting tool to support policy makers, practitioners, and investors in bridging the “valley of death” between research and adoption.