Defence Evaluation and Research Agency

The Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) was a part of the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) between 1995 and 2 July 2001. At the time it was the United Kingdom's largest science and technology organisation. It was regarded by its official history as 'a jewel in the crown' of both government and industry. In 2015 the chair of the UK's Public Administration Select Committee noted that "The UK had something the US needed and prized. Now that we no longer have the R&D capacity to produce many inventions, the mutual interest underpinning this relationship has dissipated, and the 'special relationship' is commensurately diminished. ... With less than two per cent of our defence budget spent on R&D, and following the destruction of DERA and with it much of the national R&D capability, we are generating very little technological invention."