NSO2 (NATO Standardization Organization)

NSO2 is the abbreviation for NATO Standardization Organization. The expansion appears in NATO's Glossary of NATO Acronyms and Abbreviations. It is a historical, organization-level abbreviation for the body that handled standardization across the Alliance.

NATO's current terminology is NSO, which stands for NATO Standardization Office. The Office replaced both the NATO Standardization Organization and the NATO Standardization Agency as part of the 2014 NATO Agencies Reform. Anyone who meets NSO2 in a document should read it as a reference to the earlier organization, and treat the NATO Standardization Office as its present-day successor.

What the NATO Standardization Office does now

The NATO Standardization Office initiates, coordinates, supports and administers NATO standardization activities. It works under the authority of the Committee for Standardization. NATO describes the purpose of this work as improving the interoperability and operational effectiveness of Allied forces. NATO sets out its approach on its standardization page and describes the Office on its NATO Standardization Office page.

The 2014 NATO Agencies Reform

NATO's page on the Committee for Standardization records that the NATO Standardization Organization was dissolved in the 2014 NATO Agencies Reform, when the NATO Standardization Office was created. This is why older documents and acronym lists carry NSO2 while current NATO material uses NSO.

Related NATO standardization terms

Several terms sit alongside NSO2 and appear in the same documents:

• CS (Committee for Standardization): NATO's senior committee for Alliance standardization, and the authority over the NATO Standardization Office.
• STANAG (standardization agreement): one of the products of the NATO standardization system.
• NATOTerm: NATO's official terminology database, maintained by the NATO Terminology Office, which is part of the NATO Standardization Office. It is available through the NATOTerm site.
• NSDD (NATO Standardization Document Database): the database used for information about the status of NATO standards.

What NSO2 means for a supplier bidding on Canadian public contracts

NSO2 is an abbreviation for a former NATO organization. It is not a Canadian tender field, a contract clause or a supplier certification, and a supplier cannot take a compliance action from the term alone. Any real obligation comes from the solicitation in front of you: its technical requirements, any STANAG or other NATO standard it references, its security provisions, or the instructions in an NSPA or NATO tender.

The Canadian link to NATO procurement runs through the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA). CanadaBuys showcases NSPA tender notices, and because Canada is a NATO member, Canadian businesses can bid on many of those opportunities. See the CanadaBuys guide on how to find tender opportunities.

When a bid package cites a STANAG or another NATO standard, read the referenced document and confirm that your product or service meets it. If a document uses NSO2, check it against the current NATO Standardization Office material to confirm which body it refers to.