The Annual Conference of the International Society of Military Sciences, ISMS 2020, this year, was held in virtual format, organized by the National Defence University of Finland.
The International Society of Military Sciences, established in October 2008, intends to promote a network for the creation, development, exchange and dissemination of research and knowledge in military sciences. The Society integrates military educational institutions such as the Austrian National Defence Academy, the Royal Military College of Canada, the Royal Danish Defence College, the Finnish National Defence University, the Netherlands Defence Academy, the Norwegian Defence University College, the Swedish Defence University, the Baltic Defence College, the Finnish National Defence University, the Polish War Studies University and the Portuguese Military University Institute. (https://www.isofms.org/home)
The theme of this year’s conference, “Military Sciences vs. Open Sciences”, aimed to deepen how, why, about what and for who we are researching in the area of Military Sciences.
From 13 to 26 October, the working groups had an offline (asynchronous) phase in virtual meeting rooms, in which participants could see the abstracts submitted, make comments, question and suggest contributions.
From 27 to 29 October, plenary sessions and parallel sessions of the working groups took place in virtual meeting rooms and social meeting forums. Business Meetings were also held on the last day, ad hoc meetings open to all conference participants with the aim of strengthening cooperation and supporting the essential work of the institutions, facilitating the sharing of knowledge and good practices of common interest among colleagues.
With a total of 140 participants, coming from twenty countries, the Military University Institute was represented at the highest level by Commodore Ramalho Marreiros, Director of the Research and Development Center of IUM and member of the ISMS Council.
Three military teachers from the Department of Post-Graduate Studies presented in the conference as authors:
– LtCol Silva Costa with the communication “Space policy – disruptive challenge in the domain of Security and Defence“
– LtCol Santos Loureiro (Chair of Working Group 9 – Education) with the communication “Military Post-Graduated Education response to COVID-19 pandemic“
– Maj Rosa Calhaço with the communication “Portugal’s Land, Sea and Air Operations Zone – an Update Study“
Next year’s ISMS Conference will take place at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario, between October 11 and 14.
