The key to understanding the Consortium and its potential is a clear understanding of the operations staff, the governing bodies and the study/working groups. The Consortium Operations Staff (COS) is the only permanently active body within the Consortium. Collocated and collaborating closely with the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, it is led by an Executive Director, his deputy, and a staff of international program managers. The COS is the focal point for organizational and financial support to the working and study groups. It organizes the periodic meetings of the governing bodies of PfPC, the Senior Advisory Council and the Consortium Steering Committee, and ensures their guidance is known and followed by the working and study groups.

Each working or study group is semi-autonomous, determining its goals, selecting its chairperson(s), and determining its work and meeting schedules, subject to guidance from the governing bodies. Study groups focus on intellectual exploration or development of an idea or issue. Working groups usually have one or more projects and are thus focused on the attainment of a definable goal or end state. Project teams can be created subordinate to working groups. Study/working groups meet as necessary to achieve the goals and aims that have been established by the groups. Between meetings the individuals in the study/working groups continue collaborating via the Internet. The various study/working groups, project teams, and their specific goals include:

Advanced Distributed Learning Working Group (ADL WG)

The ADL WG’s mission is to strengthen defense, military and security policy education through international and institutional cooperation by enhancing the training and education of armed forces and other personnel within the EAPC countries (Partnership for Peace and NATO). The ADL working group focuses on the use of e-learning and fosters military training transformation, interoperability and education for reform with internationally shared education and training solutions.  The mission comprises:

Creation and exchange of common education and training content: In addition to the exchange of e-learning courses that have been previously done on a national level, the ADL WG invites nations to develop courses collaboratively and with a multinational audience in mind. From a subject matter point of view, a special emphasis is given to issues that go beyond national defense training such as training for peace support operations, language training or security policy education. Examples are courses on combating trafficking in human beings and English language training.

Establishment of common education and training methods: The WG seeks to exchange experiences and best practices about the use of internet elements in education and training, and develop common methodology and recommendations for the use of internet solutions within military training. This is done via ADL WG meetings and the writing and accreditation of common reference documents.

Use of common internet technology: For the sake of interoperability, the WG encourages nations and PfP/NATO schools to use similar technological solutions in their different educational set-ups. Examples include the ILIAS LMS (which is used as the PfP Learning Management System in many nations) and the authoring solutions used for the creating of ADL content. The ADL WG is tasked with producing free and open source software and content, both of which must be ready for use in different nations with inherently different copyright laws.

Combating Terrorism Working Group (CT WG)

The PfP Combating Terrorism Working Group endeavors to develop an internationally recognized body of terrorism studies experts to better understand international, regional, and domestic terrorist threats, to educate future leaders who will have responsibilities to counter terrorism, and to provide policy analysis and assistance to leaders dealing with the current and future terrorist threat.

Education Development Working Group (ED WG)

The ED WG supports the development of defense and professional military education (PME) in the nations of the Partnership for Peace. Its efforts are framed within the context of NATO’s Partnership Action Plan for Defense Institution Building, its Education and Training for Defence Reform (EfR) Initiative and the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Top Ten Priorities for the Partnership for Peace.

The Working Group focuses on three elements of partner PME: (1) curricula that respond to the education and training needs of modern armed forces; (2) teaching and learning methods that match best practices in use in Western defense education and training institutions, and (3) faculty and institutional development and mentoring through sustained engagement over time.

In every case, the ED WG strives to respond to validated, demand-driven requirements in its areas of expertise and not on supply-driven availability of experts. At the same time, the ED WG will endeavor through dialogue and encouragement to influence partner educators in the direction of the following objectives.

Objectives of the ED WG

• Guide and mentor reforms in professional defense and military education, both in individual education institutions and in a defense-wide holistic approach to defense education and training
• Promote learner-centered education
• Promote and enable the innovative use of instructional technologies
• Create learning objectives which facilitate a depth of learning that can be readily applied through practice
• Assist in the development of assessments and action plans to employ these methods in support of quality academic programs at partner defense education and training institutions

Regional Stability in the Greater Black Sea Area Working Group (RSGBSA WG)

The RSGBSA WG endeavors to develop an internationally recognized body of experts on the Black Sea region, including the South Caucasus, to better understand international, regional, and domestic defense and security issues affecting the region, and to contribute to the development of future leaders who will have responsibilities to address those issues. The RSGBSA WG Secretariat is hosted by the Institute for Political Studies of Defense Military History in Bucharest. The RSGBSA WG uses mobile contact teams of international experts to deliver seminars to security educators and practitioners in the region in four cluster areas of common interest:

• Crisis management and civil emergency planning (2008)
• Defense institution building (2009)
• Human resources management (2010)
• Transnational security challenges (2011)

Regional Stability in Southeast Europe Study Group (RSSEE SG)

The RSSEE SG assesses the situation in principally the Western Balkan region through enhanced international cooperation, especially with institutions located in or close to the region of interest. The RSSEE SG carries out strategic research on an academic level, parallel to the practical work done in the region. It nurtures networks in the field of security policy that will contribute to peace and stability, compatible with the broader goals of the Partnership for Peace.

Security Sector Reform Working Group (SSR WG)

The SSR WG enhances democratic civil-military relations through cooperation in joint research, outreach and expert formation initiatives. It expands the exchange of ideas, insights, experiences and practices of democratic civil-military relations in the EAPC area. It collects, analysis, documents, networks, debates and publishes knowledge and best practices in security sector reform and governance. It also formulates recommendations for governments, security sector organizations, parliaments and civil society actors.

Editorial Board

The Consortium provides its membership and the wider security community with lively, relevant, and intellectually rigorous publications that focus on the Partnership for Peace dimension of contemporary European and Euro Atlantic security concerns. The purpose of the Consortium’s publications is to bring the best thinking and analysis to the attention of educators and researchers across the EAPC region. The Consortium Editorial Board produces Connections: The Quarterly Journal with assistance from the COS.  In addition it previously published single author monographs called Athena Papers, until 2005.