That was a theme expressed by Fred Hargreaves OBE, Director Strategy, Business Development and Sales for L3Harris during a panel discussion at the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) Exhibition this week.
“While there are plenty of insights to be drawn from ongoing world events such as the current situation in Ukraine, there is a risk that individual domains draw different conclusions from their own observations, therefore the objectivity of both industry and academia become increasingly important to ensure a truly multi-domain response,” Hargreaves said.
The panel, titled How to Drive Multi-Domain Integration (MDI) in a Delegated Levene Model, centred on defence’s current ambitions for MDI and the feasibility of achieving this within the existing Levene model. Introduced in 2010, the Levene model is a reform that resulted from a review of defence and subsequent recommendations conducted by former Chief of Defence Procurement, Lord Levene of Portsoken.
“When first introduced, the Levene model played an instrumental role in empowering front-line commands by realigning how defence investment and resource is distributed,” Hargreaves said. “The issue with this shift is that it also restricted the Ministry of Defence’s ability to effectively integrate across domains. The panel explored how changing the approach to integrated behaviours could make MDI work within the delegated model.”
The discussion included insights from a diverse line-up of military and business leaders aiming to address defence’s current ambitions for MDI.
The panelists joining Hargreaves were:
- Daniel Clarke, Lecturer in Cyber and Electromagnetic Activities, Cranfield University
- Brigadier Stefan Crossfield, Head Information Exploitation, Chief Data Officer and Principal AI Officer, British Army
- Major General James Roddis DSO MBE, Director Strategy, UK Strategic Command
- Paul Kealey, Division Head, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl)
Further L3Harris panel contributions at DSEI
Throughout the duration of DSEI, L3Harris experts contributed to similar conversations in panels that addressed:
- Leveraging FVEYS for procurement and delivery of TRL 9 capabilities - Shahida Barick, International Space Lead
- Achieving resilient networks and infrastructure in an age of information warfare - Ian Blower MBE, Regional Managing Director UK & I/SE
- Autonomy and automation: how to exploit this technology to maximise operational output? - Graeme Mackay CBE, VP L3Harris UK
- The UK - Australia space bridge: getting ahead in the global space race - Keith Norton, VP and GM L3Harris Communications Systems UK
L3Harris helps the UK Armed Forces to keep its people safe, protect its most sensitive data, assets and infrastructure, and always stay a step ahead of the adversary. To learn more about L3Harris at DSEI, visit here.
