The NATO DIANA Living Lab, based in Gdansk Poland, is officially opening its doors on Monday 30 March.
Operated by Gdansk University of Technology in partnership with Fort Krakow – one of NATO DIANA’s 16 accelerator sites – and with the support of Poland’s Ministry of Defence, the NATO DIANA Living Lab will a provide an opportunity for DIANA innovators to demonstrate their solutions to defence stakeholders across the region.
The new Living Lab will serve as a hub where innovators can develop and test their solutions, giving them a direct path to real-world adoption by the armed forces in Poland and other Allied nations, as well as defence suppliers, who will be able to visit the facility.
The Living Lab’s strategic location near the Baltic sea will allow for unique trials of air, land, and maritime technologies, while existing permissions mean activities like drone flights can already take place.
Accelerating the journey from innovation to capability
The Living Lab’s launch marks a new milestone in DIANA’s commitment to accelerating the adoption of innovative defence and security solutions. The Living Lab will provide a unique demo environment where innovators can showcase their solutions to defence stakeholders .
Innovators from DIANA’s 2025 cohort, including REVOBEAM, RESQUANT, Goldilock, and Is-Wireless, have already started setting up installations in Poland, focusing on areas like unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) detection and identification, secure 5G telecommunications, critical infrastructure protection, and secure IoT systems.
The Living Lab’s flexible setup and scalable infrastructure means more innovators will be able to install their technologies for testing purposes in the coming months – supporting the addition of new capabilities as the DIANA ecosystem evolves.
Connecting innovators to investors, defence primes and end-users
By enabling on-demand visits, the Living Lab will provide a platform for innovators to demonstrate their solutions to defence primes, investors, armed forces representatives from Poland and other Allied nations, and a wide network of end-users.
In addition, the Living Lab will also allow innovators to collaboratively test and enhance their solutions alongside each other – for example, trialling an innovator’s drone's interoperability or effectiveness against another innovator’s pre-installed sensors.
By providing a middle ground between the technical validation offered by DIANA’s Test Centres and full-scale operational scenarios provided by OPEXes, the Living Lab will help many DIANA innovators to rapidly test, refine, and advance their technologies towards operational validation and real-world deployment.
The Living Lab will officially open its doors on Monday, 30 March 2026, with operational activities starting in April. Later this year, DIANA innovators and alumni will then be able to access the facility and set up installations in the autumn season.
“The launch of the NATO DIANA Living Lab represents a crucial step forward in our commitment to accelerating the adoption of innovative solutions coming out from DIANA’s accelerator programme. By offering a near-operational environment that is easily accessible to defence primes, investors, and end-users, the Living Lab is set to speed up the integration and deployment of the latest defence and security solutions,” said Jyoti Hirani-Driver, Acting Managing Director of NATO DIANA.
“Today, the security of a state depends not only on equipment, resources or numbers. More and more, it depends on knowledge, cooperation, and the ability to test new solutions quickly. In a world shaped by hybrid threats, geopolitical tension and growing pressure to protect critical infrastructure, a technical university cannot be only a place of research and education. It must also be a place of responsible action. And this is the role Gdańsk Tech wants to play,”
said the rector of the Gdańsk Tech, prof. Krzysztof Wilde.