Dr Eric Pouliquen, as of December 1st, 2023, has assumed the role of Director of NATO STO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE), succeeding his tenure as Head, Innovation Branch at Allied Command Transformation (ACT).
In his previous role at ACT, Dr Pouliquen led the Future Solutions branch from July 2009 on, focusing on investigating and implementing innovative solutions to address NATO’s critical capability shortfalls. His responsibilities included coordinating Science and Technology and Open Innovation initiatives to support ACT’s warfare development efforts.
In February 2010, he stood up ACT’s engagement with industry and led the execution of the NATO-Industry Forum from 2008 until 2018.
In 2012, his branch took the role of customer of CMRE. The same year, he and his team created the ACT Innovation Hub, a physical and online collaboration platform based on the concept of Open Innovation.
In 2018, his pioneer work, aimed at leveraging Emerging and Disruptive Technologies (EDTs) and at creating an innovation ecosystem within the Alliance, contributed to major strategic initiatives such as the NATO EDT roadmap, the Defence Innovation Acceleration for the North Atlantic (DIANA) and the NATO Innovation Fund.
In 2019, he became the Head of the new Innovation Branch, with the mission to develop further ACT’s innovation capacity by developing a “Lab” capacity applying agile and rapid development principles.
Dr Pouliquen was with ACT from September 2005. Notably, he contributed to NATO’s early efforts in Countering-Improvised Explosive Devices (C-IED) and co-authored the corresponding concept, doctrine, and training program. His extensive experience with NATO dates back to December 1995 when he successively served as scientist, senior scientist, and principal scientist at CMRE (formerly NURC and SACLANTCEN). During this time, he conducted pioneering research in high frequency seabed acoustics, mine countermeasures, harbour protection, and battle space characterization. On numerous occasions, he was chief scientist on board of the NATO research vessels Alliance and Leonardo.
Dr Pouliquen served his country of France as a voluntary “coopérant” holding the position of a NASA-CNES-sponsored Post-Doctoral Researcher at the California Space Institute, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego. He holds a Master of Science and Doctorate degree (Ph.D) in “Physical Methods in Remote Sensing,” both received with Honours from the University of Paris VII. He also holds a Bachelor of Science in Physics, also received with Honours, from the University of Brest.
He is the recipient of several scientific awards, including the A.B. Wood medal from the UK Institute of Acoustics (2004) and one SACT commendation. He is the author and co-author of more than 80 publications during his scientific career.
