Research and development (R&D) approaches are shifting from traditional public and private stakeholders to commercial firms. Given the rapid merging of technologies, big tech and others in the commercial sector are being presented with more opportunities in the defence R&D field. Through public-private partnerships (P3s), the public sector can leverage private sector expertise to grapple with rapidly converging technologies. P3 models can therefore serve as a regulatory framework for institutions, as the speed of technological evolution continues to increase. Institutional factors — rules, norms, routines and established practices that dictate relations between actors within and outside of the defence innovation system — need to change alongside shifts brought on by catalytic factors. Text mining can be used to predict convergence. It can, accordingly, be included in P3 models for the defence sector to solve the issue of uncertainty over the rate of technological change and complexity. A larger variety and better frameworks of P3 models should be developed to encompass rapid convergence in the defence sector.
