NATO C3 Agency
City of The Hague
Mission
The NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NATO C3 Agency), a non-profit, customerfunded organisation, provides support to NATO through the provision of unbiased scientific support
and acquisition for NATO C4ISR (Consultation, Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence,
Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) systems. The Agency operates as an integrated team of nearly 600
professionals, of which 90% are civilian and about 10% are military, all recruited from NATO
member nations. The Agency plays a key role in ensuring interoperability and architectural coherence
across all NATO C4ISR systems. The NATO C3 Agency is intricately involved in all aspects of lifecycle C4ISR capability generation to support NATO’s forces in both fixed and deployed environments.
This work includes requirement generation, modelling and simulation, operations research, prototyping, command and control software applications, and system acquisition. In addition, the Agency’s
products and services are also available to individual or subsets of NATO nations.
Strategy
In today’s rapidly changing security environment, the effective use of technology
is one of NATO’s critical success factors. The NATO C3 Agency works to ensure
that it is an essential contributor to NATO success in providing support to current
Alliance Operations and in acting as a catalyst to help NATO transform and adapt
to meet its evolving international requirements.
Agency strategy is rooted in these key principles:
History
The roots of the NATO C3 Agency
began just over 50 years ago as the
Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers
Europe (SHAPE) Air Defence Technical
• Recruiting highly qualified engineering and scientific staff and providing them
with the proper environment for optimal exploitation of current technologies
• Developing and implementing laboratory test beds and field prototypes with
extensive operational user involvement
• Using evolutionary acquisition and spiral development techniques to quickly
field new systems and equipment
Centre. From these pioneering begin-
The effectiveness of this strategy has been clearly demonstrated across the gamut
nings, the organisation evolved into
of NATO operations both within Alliance boundaries and in out of area theatres
the SHAPE Technical Centre (STC)
as well. The Agency has been significantly involved in providing technical,
in The Hague, providing wide-ranging
analysis, and acquisition support to such NATO activities as peacekeeping in the
scientific and technical support directly
Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and extending command and control infrastruc-
to NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander
ture throughout the newer NATO member nations prior to their accession.
Europe. Separately, the NATO
Integrated Communications Systems
Management Agency (NICSMA) was
established in Brussels in 1974 to
provide voice and message services
for NATO and later became the NATO
Communications and Information
Systems Agency (NACISA). STC and
NACISA were amalgamated to become
Organisation and Expertise
the NATO C3 Agency in July 1996.
The NATO C3 Agency operates from two locations: one in Belgium adjacent to
NATO Headquarters in Brussels, the home of the European Union; the other one
in The Hague. The Head of the Agency is the General Manager, who is immediately supported by a Director of Operations, a Director of Knowledge, and an
Executive Staff. The NATO C3 Agency functions in a matrix structure comprised
of twelve Integrated Programme Teams (IPTs), ten Resource Centres, and supporting staff who provide the necessary human resources, financial, administrative,
facility, security, information technology, and other internal services. The IPTs
marshal Agency resources to deliver scientific products and services and to acquire
C4ISR capabilities for NATO; their spheres of expertise are described in their titles:
• Architecture
• Capability Planning
• Support to Operations and Urgent Requirements
• Research and Technology
• Alliance Automated Information Services
• Static Communications Infrastructure
• Satellite Communications and Deployable Communications and Information Systems
• Battle Management Command Control and Missile Defence
Links
• Information Security and Cyber Defence
The NATO C3 Agency maintains
• NATO Response Force and Interoperability
close ties to a variety of NATO
• Joint Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Sensors
Agencies and Organisations. Its
• Modelling, Simulation and Training Applications
major customer is Allied Command
Transformation (ACT), located in
Norfolk, Virginia, USA. Through its
work with ACT, the NC3A also
operates closely with NATO’s military
operational counterpart to ACT,
Allied Command Operations, located
in Mons, Belgium. Also located in
Each of the Integrated Programme teams operates under the aegis of one of four
Mons, is the NATO CIS Services
Directors – senior executives with broad oversight responsibilities in:
Agency (NCSA), with which the
• Acquisition
NC3A coordinates extensively on
• Project management and procurement services
matters of operation and maintenance
• Cost analysis and estimates
of fielded NATO C4ISR systems.
• Competitive bidding and contracting
The Agency also maintains relation-
• Operations Research
ships with the NATO Research and
• Scientific advice and analytical support
Technology Agency, the NATO
• Operational analysis
Undersea Research Centre, as well as
• Simulation, modelling and training
a variety of national defence research
• Communications and Information Systems
and procurement organisations,
• Fixed and mobile communications and transmission systems
including the Dutch TNO Physics
• Information security
and Electronics Laboratory in
• Electronic warfare
The Hague.
• Information processing
• Command and Control Systems
• Sensors
• Theatre-missile defence
• Air-ground surveillance
• Intelligence
• Reconnaissance
The Resource Centres manage the NC3A production workforce along key competency lines, ensuring it is skilled in current state-of-the-art C4ISR-related technologies, project management, and acquisition disciplines, and is fully prepared
to satisfy the demands of each project within the domains of the twelve IPTs.
The NATO C3 Agency internal services are managed by the Director of Resources,
a senior executive who oversees all support functions and is dual-tasked as the
NC3A Financial Controller.
The Directors are key members of the Agency’s executive-level governance team,
the Management Policy Board, and Production Directors also operate as customer
portfolio executives. Additionally, the Directors form the Portfolio, Programme
and Project Board (P3 Board), chaired by the Director of Operations, which
manages all aspects of the NC3A Programme of Work.
NC3A
EST.
NATO C3 AGENCY
Origin
1955 (see History)
Outlook
The NATO C3 Agency is a dynamic organisation built around NATO’s recurring
NATO
and increasing requirement to augment its political and military arms with state-
Status
Agency of the NATO Alliance
of-the-art technology for communications, information systems, command and
control, and scientific analysis. Major recent accomplishments include the
Membership
NATO Member nations
replacement of NATO’s satellite communications system, as well as its voice and
message communications infrastructure. In the near future, the Agency will be
engaged in helping NATO Programme Offices to develop a robust Theatre Missile
Defence capability and an Alliance Ground Surveillance System, allowing NATO
to respond to a wider range of evolving threats and scenarios. Ensuring that these
P R
Contacts
Information Officer
and future, as well as existing, Alliance capabilities all function together as one
network-centric system of systems, is the coherence role which the NATO C3
Agency will fulfil for many years to come.
WWW.
Website
http://www.nc3a.nato.int
E-mail
[email protected]
Management Structure
- General Manager/Deputy General Manager
- Director of Operations
- Director of Acquisition
- Director of Command and Control Systems
- Director of Communications and
Information Systems
- Director of Operations Research
- Financial Controller/Director of Resources
Staff:
600 employees (including 200 in Brussels)
NATO C3 Agency
€
Budget:
Operating Revenue and Costs: € 80 million
(50 million, The Hague; 30 million, Brussels)
NC3A The Hague
Visitors: Oude Waalsdorperweg 61, 2597 AK The Hague, Netherlands.
Mail: P.O. Box 174, 2501 CD The Hague, Netherlands.
Tel: +31 (0)70 3743000 • Fax: +31 (0)70 3743239.
COLOPHON
NC3A Brussels
Visitors: Bâtiment Z, 140 Avenue du Bourget, B-1110 Brussels, Belgium.
Mail: Boulevard Leopold III, B-1110 Brussels, Belgium.
Tel: +32 (0)2 7074111 • Fax: +32 (0)2 7078770.
Even though the utmost care was taken in the development of this brochure, The Hague Municipality and its
administrative organs accept no responsibility for possible errors and omissions, nor for the consequences thereof.
Published by the City of The Hague
Contact: +31(0)70 3536085
May 2005
Copies: 500
Layout and Editing: Judicap, The Hague
Design and Production: Bruikman & Kok, The Hague
Photography: NATO C3 Agency