The 18th NATO Operations Research & Analysis Conference took place from 4 to 6 November 2024 at the Residencia Militar Castañon De Mena in Málaga, Spain. Around 140 attendees from NATO commands and agencies, national defence analysis and research organisations, Centres of Excellence, academia and industry gathered under the theme of “Collaboration to Enable Military Advantage in an Unstable World”.
Co-hosted by NATO’s Allied Command Transformation and the NATO Science and Technology Organization, the conference built on a longstanding tradition of fostering collaboration within the NATO Operations Research & Analysis community to create and share innovations in support of NATO’s strategic objectives.
The Conference addressed the critical role of operational analysis in long-term defence planning, making informed choices about resource allocation, and the use of Operations Research & Analysis methodologies to prioritise defence investments, ensuring that resources are effectively directed toward long-term stability.
Attendees were also informed on influences and shifts in Russian military thought and strategy since 2014, underscoring the importance of understanding adversarial perspectives to enhance NATO’s strategic planning and readiness.
The role of the analytic community is to support political and military decision-making through long-term thinking analysis. […] The key to NATO’s technological edge is our scientific edge. Beyond laboratories and Research & Development, the key to that edge is our people.
– Dr Bryan Wells, NATO’s Chief Scientist
Military officers are tacticians by instinct; analysts will automatically frame the question in strategic terms, not because they are superior but because framing questions in strategic terms is intuitive to their way of thinking.
– General (Ret) Sverre Diesen, former Chief of Defence of Norway
It is important to look backwards at past research and analysis to see where we made mistakes and where we got things right.
– Professor Katri Pynnöniemi, Associate Professor at the University of Helsinki
Quick Facts:
- The goal of the Operations Research & Analysis Conference is to provide an exciting programme relevant to the Operations Research & Analysis Community of Interest, with plenty of opportunities for discussion, debate and provision of valuable and relevant training.
- Participants engaged in diverse presentations and discussions across 15 streams and two workshops, covering critical areas such as deterrence theory, policy and organisational analysis, emerging technologies, and multi-domain operations. Sessions also encouraged healthy debate in ethical considerations of Artificial Intelligence in defence analysis, and new frameworks for horizon scanning to anticipate and address future threats.
- The 19th iteration of the Conference is scheduled for 3-5 November 2025, in Berlin, Germany.
