The NCI Academy is the training academy of the NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI). The School specialises in education and training in the areas of communications, information systems and cyber defence.
The inauguration ceremony of the NATO Communications and Information Systems School, or NCI Academy, took place on the 26th and was attended by the NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, the Prime Minister, António Costa, and the Mayor de Oeiras, Isaltino Morais, among other public figures.
The NCI Academy is the body in charge of providing Education and Training (E&T) Services to NATO and its member nations. Its training gives NATO a world-class training capability that allows it to maintain its technological edge. Students are trained to protect and defend the Alliance’s IT and communications systems in the air, land, maritime and cyber domains.
Following the reorganisation of the Atlantic Alliance commands, carried out in 2010, a commitment was made to transfer the NCI Academy, previously based in Italy, to Oeiras. Despite only operating under this name since 2012, the NCI is a NATO department with over 60 years of activity and experience working alongside forces on the ground.
After the decision to move to Portugal, the NCI took the opportunity to reorganise and unify all its training and training schools, which culminated in the creation of the NCI Academy, now fully operational in Oeiras.
The inauguration of the School takes place at a time of particular importance, as NATO discusses and rethinks the strategic concept of the Atlantic Alliance.
In addition to the Secretary General of NATO, the Prime Minister and the Mayor of Oeiras, the Minister of State and Foreign Affairs, Augusto Santos Silva and the Minister of Defence, João Gomes Cravinho, were also present.
In total, the NCI Academy comprises around one hundred professionals located in Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands and Norway, and has set the challenge of training 10,000 cyber defence experts for the Alliance over the next five years.
