The new contract for NITEworks® is working to improve the tactics used by troops operating in theatre particularly in developing techniques to alleviate the threat of IEDs. NITEworks® has already improved the way intelligence is assessed and processed on operations and back in the UK.

The MOD and industry partnership, NITEworks®, creates simulated environments to test new ways of working and seek out innovative and practical solutions to challenges facing our armed forces. It also allows MOD to test more efficient and effective ways of using existing equipment on current operations, to examine the benefits of emerging technologies, in order to make more informed decisions about future equipment and processes.

Baroness Taylor said:

"I welcome the continuation of the NITEworks® collaboration between MOD and the UK defence industry. NITEworks® has proven its worth repeatedly to the equipment acquisition community and front line commands.

"I am committed to exploiting simulation based capability. Through NITEworks® we will be able to continue to test, in a simulated environment, new equipment and processes ahead of key investment decisions. This enables us to take more informed decisions, deliver more effective capability to our armed forces and ensure value for money.

"Today's announcement underlines the Government's commitment to UK research and development capability as outlined in the Defence Industrial Strategy."

NITEworks® is a partnership between MOD and industry drawing on a broad spectrum of UK defence capability and providing direct access to emerging technology.

Since 2003 NITEworks® has delivered over £400 Million in value to the MOD, deploying over 300 staff from across the MOD and industry together with a further 250 serving members of the armed forces.

Originally established in July 2003, the NITEworks® partnership is an innovative collaboration across the MOD and the UK defence community. NITEworks® has overcome the traditional intellectual property constraints to create an innovative partnering model that brings together war-fighters, subject-matter experts and industry within an environment that stimulates new thinking in a spirit of openness and transparency.

The MOD has negotiated a £43M five-year contract award to BAE Systems, as lead partner of the NITEworks® partnership, for the continued delivery of decision support services and interventions to the equipment acquisition community and to front line commands.

NITEworks® is cited within the Defence Industrial Strategy as 'one of the key means of carrying Network Enabled Capability (NEC) from ideas to delivery'. NITEworks® is a trademark registered in the name of the Secretary of State for Defence.

Industrial participation is achieved through full partnership (comprising BAE Systems, EADS, EDS, Finmeccanica, General Dynamics, LogicaCMG, MBDA, QinetiQ, Raytheon and Thales) and through associate membership representing small and medium-sized companies and other UK-based subsidiaries of major US primes.