The Centre of Excellence for Countering Improvised Explosive Devices welcomes a group of university students on work placements

•  Eight pupils start a joint project that will run throughout the academic year

The Centre of Excellence for Countering Improvised Explosive Devices (C-IED COE), as a national body reporting to the Defence, maintains close links with universities through collaboration agreements, joint research programmes and academic pratices.

It is this latter scenario that has brought a group of university students and their academic supervisors to the C-IED COE facilities in Hoyo de Manzanares (Madrid). They are starting a new joint project, which will run throughout the academic year.

The deputy director of the C-IED COE, US Colonel Christopher Bartos, has welcomed the eight students and lecturers from the Complutense University of Madrid, the Pontifical University of Comillas and the Francisco de Vitoria University.

Throughout the morning, the students attended presentations on the work carried out at the Centre, the importance of Centres of Excellence to NATO and, going into more detail, on the projects they will be involved in.

These projects will provide students with an opportunity to apply their academic knowledge in a professional setting, develop their skills and share experiences with experts of different nationalities.

In this way, the C-IED COE is further developing its role as a multidisciplinary centre, committing to research and helping to train a new generation of specialists.