DEFENCE: PLANNERS LOOK TO RESEARCH TO MINIMISE CASUALTIES.

Minimising casualties in future military operations should be a focal point of the European Defence Agency's efforts to promote defence-relevant research and technology ("R&T"). This was the message as EU member states' defence planners discussed initial priorities for the Agency's R&T agenda on June 21 in Brussels. It was the first time that the Agency's steering board, its decision-making body, had met in "capabilities" formation, bringing together national capabilities and defence planning directors.

"We must focus our research efforts on the technologies that our crisis management operations will require in the future", said the Agency's Chief Executive, Nick Witney. "We need to look at whatever technology can offer to improve force protection and to limit the damage, human or material, of military operations which will often be conducted among civilian population."

The board...