Experts' Corner on the Founding Treaty on Science and Innovation (The Cold War era)
The Experts' Corner provides a deeper look at NATO in history. Here you will find a selection of primary sources related to NATO, science and innovation.
- Films and videos
- Declassified documents
- Speeches and articles
- NATO publications from the past
- Suggested reading
Films and videos
- The Third Dimension
Discover how NATO supported young scientists during the Cold War and get a glimpse of projects that ran under the “Science for Stability” initiative in Greece, Portugal and Türkiye in the 1980s.
- CCMS
The documentary explains how NATO’s science programme called the Committee on Challenges of Modern Society (CCMS) supported collaborative projects tackling the world’s environmental and pollution crisis.
- Operation Skycheck
Get to know the story of the NATO Air Defence Ground Environment (NADGE), a joint project aimed at enhancing Allied air defence implemented in the 1960s.
- 60 years of NATO Science, Peace and Security Programme
The video looks back at the 60 years of the SPS Programme's rich history from its origins to the cooperation with partners in the 1990s and its current mission to tackle emerging scientific and technological challenges.
Declassified documents
- Report of the Committee of Three on Non-military Cooperation at NATO. 1956 – 13 Dec 1956. Official text.
Read the report that set the basis for NATO's cooperation in economic, scientific and technical fields and had a direct impact on the launch of the SPS Programme.
Speeches and articles
- NATO’s Nobel Network – Part II
Learn more about a network of Nobel laureates with whom the Alliance has cooperated or even directly supported through NATO grants. Part I can be found HERE.
- The Committee on the Challenges of the Modern Society, 1970
The NATO Review article, formerly NATO Letter, gives background on the objectives and scope of work of the Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society (CCMS) as envisioned just a few weeks after its establishment.
- CCMS: Dynamic Instrument of Trans-Atlantic Co-operation, 1979
The NATO Letter article provides information on the 20th Plenary Session of the CCMS, the areas of work that the CCMS focused on and the key environmental challenges considered by NATO at that time.
- Diplomacy by other means? NATO’s science sixty years on…
In this NATO Review article, Simone Turchetti looks back at the development and key milestones of the SPS Programme for the occasion of its 60th anniversary.
- 20 years of working with partners to bring progress and peace through science
Find out how NATO had cooperated on science with its partners all over the world from the end of the Cold War to 2012.
- Science: NATO’s “Third Dimension”
The article summarises more than 50 years of scientific cooperation at NATO and gives examples of its concrete achievements and projects.
- 1958 - 2018: The Science for Peace and Security Programme celebrates its 60th anniversary
Read more about the SPS Programme’s beginnings and how it was responding to changing security, social and environmental challenges in its 60 years of activities.
NATO publications from the past
- NATO and Science. 1978.
The pamphlet introduces NATO's role in science and its special scientific programmes.
- The Challenges of Modern Society. 1991.
The publication offers a description of the CCMS' work and covers its Pilot Studies conducted from 1971 to 1990.
- The NATO Science Programme – An Illustrated Survey: Bringing scientists together for progress and peace. 1999.
The short publication provides a glimpse into the SPS Programme's post-Cold War activities focused on increased cooperation among NATO Allies and partners from the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council.
- The Virtual Silk Highway Project
Background information on the SPS Programme project that provided high-speed internet access and connectivity in the South Caucasus and Central Asia and later also Afghanistan.
Suggested reading
Turchetti, Simone. Sword, Shield and Buoys: A History of the NATO Sub-Committee on Oceanographic Research, 1959–1973. Centaurus; international magazine of the history of science and medicine, 2012.