The UK and France have renewed cooperation to bolster PNT resilience, including work on eLoran, signal jamming resistance, tech research & infrastructure improvements.

Prerequisites:

• Identify and build relationships with international partners

• Lead agency & budget

• Procurement pathway

• Partner support as needed

Cost:

• Ballpark: USD 100K-1M

• Includes: bilateral or multilateral agreements, joint research projects, calls for proposals and administration

Timeframe:

• Overall: 24–48 mo

• Phase: Partnership setup (6–12 mo), Projects implementation (12–30 mo), Evaluation (6–6 mo

Pros:

• Cost-sharing - Reduces the financial burden on individual nations by pooling resources.

• Access to expertise - Partners gain exposure to advanced technical knowledge, labs, and testing facilities they may not have domestically.

• Regional interoperability - Jointly developed PNT solutions are more likely to be interoperable across borders, supporting aviation, maritime, and transport sectors.

• Political credibility - Demonstrates international cooperation, raising national profile and credibility in global forums (ICAO, ITU, IMO).

• Capacity building - Provides opportunities for joint training, researcher exchanges, and skill development across partner nations.

• Shared risk - Distributes the risks of research failure, technical delays, or budget overruns.

Considerations:

• Coordination complexity - Aligning multiple governments’ funding cycles, priorities, and regulations can cause delays.

• Unequal contributions - Risk of tension if one partner contributes more funding while another contributes less but receives equal benefits.

• IP and data rights issues - Disputes may arise over intellectual property, data access, and commercial exploitation of results.

• Dependence on partners - Future continuity may depend on sustained political will in partner nations; if one drops out, the initiative could stall.

• Longer timelines - Multinational projects often take longer due to negotiations and consensus-building, even for smaller-scale research.