R3’s Neil Marshall attended the NATO 2013 C-IED Conference, organized by the Allied Command of Transformation (ACT) and hosted by Spain.  The conference took place at the premises of the Allied Force Command Madrid HQ, Spain, from 04-06 June 2013, with the support of the C-IED Centre of Excellence.  The target audience for this conference is senior and working level staff officers and government civilians directly involved in National or NATO Counter-IED activities, development, policy or training.  The conference included NATO, Partnership for Peace (PfP), ISAF Troop Contributing Nations (TCNs) and non-NATO organizations involved in C-IED capability development. The theme of this year’s conference was “Institutionalising C-IED (Defeat the Device (DtD), Attack the Network (AtN), Protect the Force (PtF)) at the operational and strategic levels”. The aim is to identify and capture for institutionalisation the lessons learned, roles, responsibilities and capabilities required for C-IED success at the operational and strategic levels. During the conference three themes were addressed: Understanding Transnational Threat Networks, Institutionalising C-IED capabilities at the Operational and Strategic Levels, and Policy and Doctrine necessary to ensure C-IED success in future operations.

R3 provides program of record and institutionalization effort support to Naval EOD Technology Division’s Technical Support Detachment which is interconnected with these NATO EOD and C-IED Centers of Excellence.