The mission of NATO’s Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence is to support NATO’s strategic communications capability and contribute to the Alliance’s communication processes by providing comprehensive analysis, timely advice and practical support. The Centre’s aim is to contribute substantially to the improvement of NATO, its Allies’ and Partners’ strategic communication capabilities through research, analysis, concept development, prototyping, doctrine development, standardisation and case studies. It also invests in the continuing development of Strategic Communications education and training.
NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence works to deliver up-to-date and in-depth analysis of methodologies applied by malicious actors across the information space. The work is focused on, but is not limited to, the digital environment analysis, with particular focus on emerging technologies and artificial analysis, to provide comprehensive and practical knowledge base to those working in the field of strategic communications. The Centre, located in Riga, Latvia was established in 2014 with the aim of providing a tangible contribution to the strategic communications capabilities of NATO, its Allies, and its Partners. The Centre’s expertise has formed by combining knowledge from military, private, public, and academic sectors and successfully applying research to recognize and manage emerging threats in the information environment. Currently, its team is formed of highly qualified experts from 17 Nations, and is led by Director Mr. Jānis Sārts.
During its first 10 years of full operational capability the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence has established itself as one of the primary research and fusion hubs on this subject matter. Focus areas include strategic communications, countering disinformation, revealing trends in digital security and understanding hostile actor strategies, tactics, and methodologies and techniques in the Euro-Atlantic area. The Centre is also responsible for covering Strategic Communications and related functions of Public Affairs, Public Diplomacy, Information Operations, as well as the communication capabilities of Psychological Operations and Military Public Affairs.
The Centre’s international team of experts conducts research in response to the needs of NATO and governments of participating nations. They also develop trainings, designs programmes to advance the development of NATO military doctrine, and provides comprehensive analysis and practical support for decision makers in the Alliance.
One of their most notable milestones reached in the last year was the launch of the “InfoRange” – information environment simulation platform developed together with frontrunners of the private sector in this field. “This product provides dynamic training by replicating real-world information environments, including networks, interactions, processes, and user characteristics. It serves training purposes from tactical to strategic level and can be used for Strategic Communications training requirements of different subject matter areas. This comprehensive simulation environment offers opportunities for observations and conclusions about the role of strategic communications in crisis or conflict and thereby provides a validation environment for concepts and doctrines. It is designed to fit the needs of training audiences from all Strategic Communications sub-disciplines – public diplomacy, civilian and military public affairs, Information Operations and Psychological Operations. In 2024 “InfoRange” was implemented in the annual “Locked Shields” exercise organized by the Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence.
The Programme of Work conducted by the Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence is extensive, and includes the publication of more than 20 publicly available research reports, and the organization of – and participation in – numerous training activities and workshops. It also includes the execution of its yearly conferences such as the “Emerging Trends in Social Media” conference and its flagship event, the “Riga StratCom Dialogue”. In 2023 for the first time “Riga StratCom Dialogue” participants were able to engage with industry frontrunners at the Company Marketplace that was integrated into the conference concept.
The Centre of Excellence also continues to issue its academic journal “Defence Strategic Communications”.
In addition to these activities, the Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence is also producing the #StratComPodcast, offering listeners insights and opinions about strategic communications, global security, democracy, and more. The #StratComPodcast is available in both video and audio formats on YouTube and Spotify.
