BCET's Andreas Tolk serves as Technical Evaluator for NATO's Research and Technology Organization

The application of Modeling and Simulation (M&S) in NATO to meet the new challenges of armed forces in multinational and multi-agency operations was the common focus of the papers prepared for the NATO M&S Group 2008 Symposium on "How is Modelling and Simulation meeting the Defence Challenges out to 2015?" The papers show that M&S applications in NATO and the nations are based on a solid engineering solution. The use of common standards and the active contribution to close identified gaps in collaboration with other professional M&S organizations are evidence for the increasing maturity. However, the new operational realities of multinational multi-agency civilian military operations result in the need for better support enabling the application of M&S contributions by NATO and its nations in a not only technically but also conceptually orchestrated set of tools.  The symposium was conducted in Vancouver, Canada from 7 to 8 October 2008. The keynote speeches and papers presented covered NATO efforts as well as efforts of the nations. The sessions emphasized Concepts and Techniques for Federation Design, Interoperability (including M&S-to-C2), National Initiatives and Research Programmes, New Technologies, and M&S in Support of Future Coalition Operations, Support of Homeland Security, and Training.

Dr. Andreas Tolk, Associate Professor for Engineering Management and Systems Engineering and affiliated with the Virginia Modeling Analysis and Simulation Center, was tasked by NATO's Modeling & Simulation Coordination Office to evaluate papers, presentations, and discussions and to summarize his findings and recommendations in a Technical Evaluation Report for NATO's Research and Technology Organization. This is the fifth time that he is serving in this role.