On 8-9 December, the Baltic Defence College (BALTDEFCOL) and the Lithuanian Ministry of National Defence organised in Vilnius the 2nd Baltic Defence Innovation Conference – a regional forum launched in 2013 by the ICDS in close cooperation with the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian defence ministries as well as BALTDEFCOL.
The event brought together capability planners, military end-users, industry and S&T representatives from the three Baltic states, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Poland, Germany, Ukraine, the United States, European Defence Agency and NATO Allied Command Transformation to discuss trends in defence innovation, share new knowledge and exchange ideas for future collaboration. ICDS Head of Studies Tomas Jermalavicius, who was the convenor of the 1st conference in 2013, spoke on the panel dedicated to dual-use technologies and presented the main findings of the ICDS study about dual use R&T for defence, civil security and public safety sector in Estonia (it can be found here). He also moderated a session on innovative approaches and solutions to ensuring host nation support (HNS) for NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence in the Baltic states. Next Baltic Defence Innovation Conference is to be held in Latvia in 2018.