One of the EOD COE LLA section goals is to become a platform for experience and lessons sharing within EOD COI. The continuity in this effort is ensured by organizing EOD Operator’s LL Seminar yearly. In 2015, the EOD COE organised already the 4th Annual EOD Operators Lessons Learned Seminar.
The meeting was at the same place (Bratislava, Slovakia 27-29 OCT 2015) as in previous years, but the concept of the event reflected the effort to tailor it better in accordance with the needs of expected audience. The scope of the meeting was divided into two topic oriented sessions (lessons from EOD incidents and training systems) and the third morning session was supposed to exploit the experience and know-how within two syndicates. What is more, with the aim to open the seminar to a wider EOD COI, the Partnership for Peace (PfP) countries were invited to take part in it for the first time.
Summarizing, it can be stated that the seminar gradually becomes a tool to develop more mutual trust and share some EOD perspectives in a deeper extent within EOD COI. This observation is also supported by some statistics as this year there were 50 representatives from CAN; DEU; NLD; BEL; ESP, SWE; USA; GBR; POL; ITA, GRC; NOR; SVK; MILENG COE; CIED COE, ARRC, JFCN; UNMAS; SHAPE; SVK Police, cooperating SME (FBI ret); and from the organiser - EOD COE.
Despite the fact that due to a number of active speakers there was no time to held planned syndicates, the audience expressed steady increasing satisfaction and their interest to participate in these events on regular basis. In harmony with that and reflecting feedback from the audience, the EOD COE LLA Section plans to add a more demanding objective for 2016 – to create limited platforms for developing knowledge and experience foundations for further analysis in favour of EOD COI.