Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, French Air Force General Stephane Abrial, recently hosted a senior delegation of NATO and Nations’ scientific leaders led by Dr. Walker, the Chairman of the NATO Research and Technology Board.

The discussion focused on how to design appropriate interfaces to ensure a balance between the “supply” of Science & Technology (S&T) capacity that will be provided by Nations through the future NATO Science and Technology Organisation (STO) and the “demand” for multinational S&T efforts originating from NATO and the Nations.

In his introductory remarks, General Abrial explained: “in the wake of the June 8 Defence Ministerial decision to reform NATO S&T, we are here together to consolidate foundations for a new, inclusive relationship between scientific knowledge users and science producers, between demand and supply in the Alliance”.

In his response, Dr. Walker indicated that “S&T is the engine of innovation providing not only a technology advantage but also a knowledge advantage which is all about people. The relationship between demand and supply should move from hand-off to hand-shake. The focus shall be on alignment, on knowledge brokering of cooperative investment, supporting the Smart Defence concept of the NATO Secretary General. This will insure that S&T is appropriately positioned to be a strategic enabler of the knowledge and technology advantage of the Nations’ and NATO’s Defence and Security posture”.

The roundtable proved to be a very successful event in developing a closer relationship between HQ SACT and the NATO S&T community. The discussions provided a basis for the future implementation of a NATO Science and Technology framework that can do more to focus Nations’ scientific efforts on addressing the emerging challenges and needs of the Alliance as a whole.