The 1st Establishment Conference of the future NATO Center of Excellence (COE) in the field of Geospatial, Meteorological and Oceanographic support (GEOMETOC) for Alliance maritime operations was held in Lisbon, between 09th and 10th of October 2019.
Several NATO member countries were represented at this conference in order to contribute to the concept of operation of this CEO, the first certified in the national territory.
Official representatives from Portugal, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Spain, United States of America, France, Greece, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Romania and Turkey attended the conference. NATO's command structure was represented by Allied Command Transformation (ACT) and Allied Command Operations (ACO), notably through its operational commands, the Supreme Headquarters Allied Power Europe (SHAPE) and Allied Maritime Command (MARCOM), as well as by its center for scientific research in military oceanography, the Center for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE).
This COE will be developed from the Maritime GEOMETOC Center, recently created by the Portuguese Navy to support its naval operations and NATO maritime operations. The excellence of the work carried out by this Center has been recognized by the Alliance, as well as its members, who are now seeking to partner to jointly develop the Alliance Knowledge Center in the field of maritime GEOMETOC support in Portugal.
The conference opening session was chaired by His Excellency the Minister of National Defence, Dr. João Gomes Cravinho, accompanied by the Chief of General Staff of the Portuguese Armed Forces, Admiral António Silva Ribeiro, by the Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral António Maria Mendes Calado and the representative of Allied Command Transformation, Colonel Francesco Pacillo (Italy).
The conference was developed over different working sessions, with strong participation by the Allied Nations. The enthusiasm shown by the participating nations preview a genuine willingness on the part of these countries to join in building and sustaining the future NATO Center for Excellence in the field of GEOMETOC Maritime knowledge, contributing with specialized human resources and financial resources.
