On Friday 22nd November Prof Dyson presented a keynote lecture and delivered a workshop for officers at the NATO Airborne Early Warning & Control Force (NAEW&CF).

Left to right, Air Commodore Andrew Turk (Deputy Commander and Chief of Staff NAEW&CF), Tom Dyson and John Tull

Located at the NATO Air Base Geilenkirchen in Germany, the NAEW&CF is home to NATO’s ‘eyes in the sky’, the E-3A Airborne Warning & Control System (AWACS). NATO’s AWACS aircraft play a vital role for the Alliance by protecting Allied airspace with their air and maritime surveillance capability. They provide the Alliance with air surveillance, battle management, command and control, and communications, and are used for a vast range of NATO missions and exercises

Presenting together with Dr John Tull (University of Greenwich, formerly PIRP), Prof Dyson briefed officers and civilian personnel on the findings of his ESRC research project (ES/V004190/1) on miliary learning. The lecture focused on the project’s findings about the main barriers to learning within military organisations, as well as good practices to help overcome these barriers, especially regarding the effective implementation of the NATO Lessons-Learned Process. It was followed by an interactive workshop which provided an opportunity for NAEW&CF officers to reflect, in the light of the presentation, on the lesson-learning challenges that they face in air and maritime surveillance, as well as opportunities for enhancing learning. Anonymous feedback was then collected from officers about these challenges and opportunities. It was then written up and passed on to civilian personnel at NAEW&CF and will inform the development of the NAEW&CF lesson-learned process.

The presentation and workshop were organised with the kind assistance of Ms Lesley van Laak, Head of the Force Commander’s Quality and Strategic Management Office (QSM) and Ms Karma Maurer (QSM). The event lasted over two hours and was attended by more than 50 officers from a wide variety of NATO member-states. It included the participation of the Commander of the NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control Force, Major-General Andreas Korb (Germany), the Commander of the NATO Early Warning and Control Force, E-3A Component, Brigadier-General Kristen D. Thompson (USA) and the Deputy Commander and Chief of Staff, Air Commodore Andrew Turk (UK).