Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes

The Advanced Distributed Learning Working Group’s[8] mission is to strengthen e-learning-based defense and security policy education through international and institutional collaboration. The activities include the creation and sharing of interactive, widely needed e-learning courseware; providing access to interoperable, open-source e-learning technologies; and the exchange and dissemination of ADL-based best practices. A strategic goal is to contribute to the Defense Education Enhancement Program (DEEP) and integrate interested Partner nations into the ADL community of practice. The Advanced Distributed Learning Working Group coordinates and standardizes training and promotes innovation.

The Education Development Working Group (EDWG) is designed to strengthen defense education in partner nations and consists of two core components:

• Reference Curriculum
• Faculty Development

These two core components are facilitated by the multinational staffed Defense Education Enhancement Program (DEEP),.[9][10] DEEP is central to EDWG activities, supporting foreign government defense learning institution efforts to: (1) enhance the quality and relevance of curriculum and to (2) promote faculty development and modern learning techniques within a framework of individually tailored multi-year action plans. As of December 2014, DEEP programs were underway in 13 nations: Afghanistan,[11] Armenia, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Georgia,[12] Iraq, Kazakhstan, Mauritania, Moldova, Mongolia, Serbia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

The Emerging Security Challenges (ESC) Working Group aims to enhance the capacity of decision makers and policy shapers to identify and respond to emerging security challenges. Specifically, its goal is to identify and prioritize such challenges and discuss possible political frameworks and mechanisms to address them. “Emerging Security Challenges” has become a term used at NATO and in public debate to deal with potential, upcoming, non-traditional threats to our security. The working group does not have a defined set of issues for analysis - rather, it remains open to include new challenges as they arise. Along with the EDWG, the Emerging Security Challenges working group under the leadership of Sean Costigan(George C. Marshall Center for European Security Studies) and Michael Hennessy (Royal Military College of Canada) led the creation of the NATO/PFPC Cybersecurity Generic Reference Curriculum. The curriculum was endorsed by the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, and is currently available in four languages: English, French, Arabic and Russian.

The Security Sector Reform Working Group (SSRWG) was formally established in 2001 and is financially supported by the Swiss Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport. Its stated objectives are “to enhance the exchange of ideas, insights, expertise, knowledge and best practices of security sector reform processes between consolidating and consolidated democracies in the Euro-Atlantic area”.[13] From 2010, the group began to focus more on human security issues and has taken a particular interest in how to improve gender equality through defence transformation. This led the group to identify teaching gender to the military as an area that warranted greater attention, resulting in a series of workshops organised in collaboration with the EDWG, starting in 2012. These have been attended by representatives from NATO and Partner countries specialising in military education, gender education and integrating gender in military operations. The SSRWG’s current activities are centred on the development of a handbook to document the findings of the workshop series.[14]

The Regional Stability in Southeast Europe Study Group contributes to peace and security in Southeast Europe. Its working principles include the following:

• Evaluate the situation and factors in the South East European region that promote regional stability through enhanced international co-operation, especially with institutions located in or close to the region of interest
• Carry out strategic research on an academic level supplementary to and stimulating the practical work done in the region
• Provide support for the improvement of networks in the field of security policy and help create a peaceful, strategic and stable community in the Southeast Europe region compatible to the broader Partnership for Peace network and beyond

The PfPC's Regional Security in the South Caucasus Study Group actively seeks to foster stability in the region through facilitating dialogue among diverse parties. The activities of the group serve to advise broader conflict resolution activities, such as the Geneva Talks and the OSCE Minsk Group. The group pursues its goals by focusing on the following areas:

• Ensuring multinational participation, building on experts from all dimensions of the security-political spectrum of the three core countries Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia: This is paralleled by bringing in experts on regional stability issues from the main partner countries and institutions to the region, namely the European Union (Member States), the Russian Federation, Turkey, the United States, as well as NATO, the OSCE and the UN.
• Building a constructive network of academic and policy-making influence: This includes involving civil society, think-tanks and defense institutions in the group's work.
• Encouraging an alteration of the conflicting narrative in the region in order to progress conflict negotiation