Located in southern Germany, the NATO SCHOOL Oberammergau (NSO) is NATO's premier facility for training and education at the operational level. NSO conducts hundreds of multinational programmes annually in direct support of current and developing operations, strategy, policy, doctrine and procedures. The student population is diverse, military and civilian, representing NATO nations, partner nations and international organizations – all coming together in a conducive learning environment to create the shared understanding and interoperability that is at the core of successful multinational operations. Since its founding, NSO has graduated over 200,000 students; today, NSO welcomes 10,000 students and conferees annually.

To support the needs of the Alliance, NSO’s curriculum has grown to more than 115 different courses today. The NSO provides courses in six main disciplines: Intelligence, Cooperative Security, Joint Operations, Joint Plans, Protection, and Non-Commissioned Officer Programmes. The course directors, drawn from over 20 nations, have a vast résumé of experience and education. They work closely with the NATO Command Structure to ensure training is relevant and timely, and they work closely with Allied Command Transformation to ensure training is developed and delivered in accordance with NATO’s training doctrine and standards.

While the majority of students attend in Residence Courses, NSO also has the capability to bring training to the customer through Mobile Education and Training Teams (METTs) and Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL). These methodologies provide the customer with greater flexibility regarding the time and place of learning, and can be more cost effective solutions.

Given NSO’s convenient location and world-class facilities, the NSO remains the destination of choice for many defence and security-related conferences and seminars each year. There is not a better environment to promote innovative thinking and establish collaborative relationships than the scenic beauty of Oberammergau and the privacy and security of NSO.

For more than 60 years, the NSO has been a place for training and education in support of the Alliance and its partners. Although we cannot predict the nature of the next conflict, NSO will ensure its training continues to reflect and anticipate the changing security environment and the needs of the Alliance.