India, France Sign Pact for Joint Defence R&D

• India and France signed a broad DRDO–DGA agreement enabling joint defence R&D, training, and shared IP
• Collaboration spans aircraft, drones, AI, space, advanced materials, and underwater systems, with 2026 proposed as the Year of Innovation
• Partnership deepens future plans like co-developing fighter engines and expanding Rafale production in India

Recently, the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) and France’s Directorate General of Armaments (DGA) signed a significant technical agreement to enhance collaboration on defence R&D efforts. Sources clarified that this agreement does not pertain to a particular program, like co-development on fighter engines, but provides a general framework for addressing joint R&D projects.

The agreement, signed by DRDO Chairman Dr. Samir V. Kamat and France’s National Armaments Director Lt. Gen. Gael Diaz de Tuesta, allows joint research and development, sharing of knowledge, joint training, and co-ownership of intellectual property for any innovations created jointly.

According to the Ministry of Defence, the agreement serves to leverage the combined skills and resources of both governments to meet future defence challenges.

The collaboration lets research to be done together, share tools, skills, and technologies through training, testing, workshops, and seminars, and hold direct exchanges between the two parties. Areas of major importance are aircraft, drones, and advanced materials for defence along with modern security, artificial intelligence, space, and navigation, and even underwater systems.

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The two countries have put forward the idea of naming the year 2026 'The Year of Innovation for India and France', which is an invitation to share all technology and strategical matters not only in defence.

With the strong strategic partnership that India and France have established since 1998, they are now cooperating in the fields of digital technologies, climate change, and even the blue economy and sustainable development in addition to defence, nuclear, and Indo-Pacific security.

The Indian Armed Forces are already using some of the French systems for defence, which includes combat aircraft, submarines, and missiles, as well as helicopters. Among the plans for the future is the co-development of a next-generation fighter engine and the local production of Rafale combat aircraft which would solidify the long-term partnership between India and France in defence collaboration.