Earlier this year, members of NNSA’s Nuclear Incident Policy and Cooperation team participated in a course-development workshop with counterparts from around NATO at the Crisis Management and Disaster Response Centre of Excellence in Sofia, Bulgaria. 

The workshop was a follow up to a spring 2022 meeting with the teams to work on a new course NNSA offered to NATO. Col. Orlin Nikolov, the director of the Centre and his team hosted the NNSA squad and has continued to be an active and supportive partner.

The future course – to be called “Disaster Response and Consequence Management for a Radiological Incident” – is for an audience of emergency management specialists and those focused on chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats. The course includes engaging lectures, hands-on activities, radiological equipment demonstrations, and a tabletop simulation exercise capped off by a practical field exercise hosted by a local Bulgarian military unit.

“This course is the final pillar of the Nuclear Incident Policy and Cooperation expansion program to support NATO,” said Andrae Brooks, Senior Foreign Affairs Officer in NNSA’s Office of Counterterrorism and Counterproliferation. “We are proud to support NATO and our allies in creating a new radiological-based consequence management course for the Alliance.” 

NNSA’s Remote Sensing Laboratory is providing the bulk of the radiological expertise for the course through its facilitators and equipment, including  radiological detectors, environmental sampling gear, and specialized personal protective equipment for training. Staff from the Centre and NATO’s Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre will also support the course.