During the lead-up to the NATO Summit in Chicago there has been a series of workshops aimed at exploring NATO's role in implementing the Smart Defence initiative that was introduced by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen last year.

One of these, "Industrial Contributions to Smart Defence", was jointly hosted earlier this year by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), the Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (SACT) and the NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defence Investment (ASG/DI).

More than sixty senior leaders from NATO, nations, industry and 'Think Tanks', and the EU participated in the round table discussions.

A summary report with the results of this workshop has now been published on the RUSI web page, highlighting several ways NATO can streamline its collaborative engagement with industry throughout the life-cycle of capabilities. NATO can harmonise links with nations and industry, improve the transparency and sharing of information and improve capability development and procurement processes. Even without leverage on industry or regulation, this will help to deliver capabilities that are more sustainable and interoperable.

Recommended follow-on actions included some that can be implemented immediately and others that will require further consideration. ACT will collaborate with NATO Defence Investment to implement the workshop proposals as part of a continuous effort to seek ways for industry to contribute meaningfully to capability development in NATO.