The NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A) was formed in 1996 by merging the

SHAPE Technical Centre The SHAPE Technical Centre or Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe Technical Centre (STC) was formerly known as the SHAPE Air Defence Technical Centre (SADTC). It was formed in 1955 and located in The Hague, Netherlands. It conducted rese ...

(STC) in

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

; and the

NATO Communications and Information Systems Agency The NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A) was formed in 1996 by merging the SHAPE Technical Centre (STC) in The Hague, Netherlands; and the NATO Communications and Information Systems Agency (NACISA) in Brussels, Belgium. NC3A was p ...

(NACISA) in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

. NC3A was part of the

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

Consultation, Command and Control Organization (

NC3O The NATO Consultation, Command and Control Organization (NC3O) was formed in 1996. Its main objective is to provide a coherent, secure and interoperable C3 capability to the NATO. The NATO Consultation, Command and Control Board (NATO C3 Board or N ...

) and reported to the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Board ( NC3B). In July 2012, NC3A was merged into the

NATO Communications and Information Agency The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI Agency) is NATO's technology and cyber hub. The Agency provides C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, and Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance; refer to Command and cont ...

(NCIA). The agency had around 800 staff, of which around 500 were located in The Hague and 300 in Brussels. Broadly speaking, the Netherlands staff were responsible for scientific research, development and experimentation, while the Belgian staff provided technical project management and acquisition support for NATO procurement programmes. The Agency was organised using a

balanced matrix In mathematics, a balanced matrix is a 0-1 matrix (a matrix where every entry is either zero or one) that does not contain any square submatrix of odd order having all row sums and all column sums equal to 2. Balanced matrices are studied in li ...

model, with four main areas: the Production area, Sponsor Accounts, Core Segment and Resources Division. The Production area consisted of nine capability area teams (CATs) with various areas of expertise. The Sponsor Accounts area had Directors for each of the Agency's major sponsors, providing a single point of contact with the Agency. The Core Segment comprised a Chief Operating Officer, Chief Technology Officer and Director of Acquisition, who ensured coherency of the Agency's business, technical and acquisition processes respectively. The Resources Division handled Agency operations such as Human Resources, Finance, Graphics, Building Maintenance, etc. Since 2004, the Agency used the

PRINCE2 PRINCE2 (PRojects IN Controlled Environments) is a structured project management method and practitioner certification programme. PRINCE2 emphasises dividing projects into manageable and controllable stages. It is adopted in many countries wor ...

and PMI project management methodologies. General Manager

Georges D'hollander Georges may refer to: Places * Georges River, New South Wales, Australia * Georges Quay (Dublin) *Georges Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania Other uses *Georges (name) * ''Georges'' (novel), a novel by Alexandre Dumas * "Georges" (song), a 19 ...

and Deputy General Manager

Kevin Scheid Kevin () is the anglicized form of the Irish masculine given name (; mga, Caoimhghín ; sga, Cóemgein ; Latinized as ). It is composed of "dear; noble"; Old Irish and ("birth"; Old Irish ). The variant ''Kevan'' is anglicized from , an ...

split their time between their offices in The Hague and Brussels. Staff were recruited directly from the 28 NATO nations, the majority holding degrees at the Masters level or above. The working language of the Agency was English. NC3A's prime customers were

Allied Command Transformation Allied Command Transformation (ACT) (French: ''Commandement allié Transformation'') is a military command of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), formed in 2003 after restructuring. It was intended to lead military transformation of ...

and

Allied Command Operations Allied Command Operations (ACO) is one of the two strategic commands of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the other being Allied Command Transformation (ACT). The headquarters and commander of ACO is Supreme Headquarters Allied Powe ...

, as well as the NATO Air Command and Control System (ACCS) Management Agency (

NACMA NACMA was the NATO ACCS Management Agency. It was responsible for the management of the NATO Air Command and Control System (ACCS) programme, which is a $500M project to provide the NATO commands with a new air command and control system from 2009 ...

), NATO Airborne Early Warning (NAEW) Force Command and individual NATO nations. Its annual budget was roughly 100 million euros. Major growth areas were the NATO Network Enabled Capability (NNEC), Theatre Missile Defence (TMD) and the Alliance Ground Surveillance and Reconnaissance (AGSR) projects. The Agency traditionally had a strong emphasis on prototyping and aimed to follow a spiral development model. The agency aimed to complement, not compete with, national research and development, and was primarily concerned with improving C4ISR interoperability between the nations and supporting major acquisition C4ISR programmes.

References

External links

NCIA official web site

NCI Agency Jobs

The Distributed Networked Battle Labs

NACMA official web site
* {{small, (1.68 MiB) Command and control Information operations units and formations of NATO Military research institutes