A nice climate, which allowed experiments to be carried out for most of the year, and the location, which provided easy access both to deep and shallow waters, favoured this solution.

Pending final approval of financial support from NATO members, the U.S. Secretary of Defence agreed to provide the necessary funding for the immediate establishment of this organisation.

The flags of the nine NATO nations that provided personnel to the centre were raised for the first time with that of the Atlantic Alliance in the Italian naval compound east of La Spezia.

To carry out its mission the centre chartered an old freighter, the Aragonese (ship), which was quickly transformed into a research vessel, giving the organisation a seagoing capability.

Until the mid-1970s, the centre's research focus was mainly on deep waters, where Soviet nuclear submarines prowled for possible attack on the continental U.S. or to disrupt lines of communications between North America and Europe.

Activity at-sea remained pretty intensive, and in 1974 the Manning, a T-Boat built for the U.S. Army and previously used by Columbia University for oceanographic work, joined the SACLANTCEN fleet on loan from the U.S. government.

The centre started testing the first experimental hydrophone linear array built by Hughes Aircraft Corporation, on loan from the U.S. Office of Naval Research.

However the directionality (due to its length) and the possibility of positioning it at the optimal depth, as well as its passive and active capabilities, were the main advantages highlighted by tests.

In 1984 the keel of a new research vessel specially designed for SACLANTCEN was laid at the Muggiano Fincantieri shipyard, a few hundred meters away from the centre.

The NATO Research Vessel (NRV) Alliance was launched in 1986 and commissioned in 1988, replacing the Maria Paolina G. Since then, it has retained its reputation as one of the quietest ships afloat, spending an average of 170 days a year at sea supporting the centre's experiments.

New technologies were adopted to be able to collect data over long periods of time in a harsh environment, with problems ranging from thermal shock on sensors to difficulties in lowering the buoys into the water.

During this period, the decrease in NATO's strategic interest in anti-submarine warfare (ASW) was matched by a corresponding increase in the significance of mine countermeasures (MCM), especially in the context of expeditionary operations.

This was highlighted by operations in the Northern Persian Gulf in 1990–91 when the projection of coalition power ashore was constrained by its maritime forces' ability to reduce, at an adequate rate, the risk posed by Iraqi mines.

The new focus required higher sonar frequencies, the ability to identify mines masked by the environment, and an increase in the tempo of MCM operations.

SACLANTCEN links to military organisations were vital in obtaining support of naval submarine services, and numerous experiments were carried out in the Mediterranean.

New research programmes at the centre investigated how to reduce the number of false alarms caused by reverberation, directional interference and target-like clutter when LFAS was used closer to the coasts.

Fixed feature removal methods were investigated, while studies on detection optimisation and information extraction were also carried out to automate and improve LFAS performances in shallow waters.

In May 1996, SACLANTCEN carried out a shallow water acoustic classification experiment in Greece, in the Gulf of Kyparissia, with the source level towed by the NRV Alliance.

A recommendation was issued for environmental assessment procedures to be implemented, and this led in 1999 to the Sound Ocean Living Marine Resources (SOLMAR) programme at the centre.

In a post-Cold War environment, crises tended to be regional, taking place in unknown coastal waters, with operations involving joint and combined forces.

[3] The Adriatic Sea became the focus of attention in 1992 when NATO took part in a monitoring operation to verify sanctions imposed on Serbia and Montenegro by the United Nations.

A shallow water environment with intense trawler fishing activities, such as the Adriatic, required robust new instrumentation for oceanographic surveys conducted to support naval operations.

Named Barny, the ADCP sensors were at 0.5 m from the bottom providing optimal boundary layer coverage, and following tests of the prototype built at SACLANTCEN, it was mass-produced by a commercial company under centre supervision.

With the increase in mine-related activities, SACLANTCEN also took part in the development of MCM Exclusive Planning and Evaluation Tool (EXPERT), led by NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A).

Similarly the Electronic Minefield Referee (EMIR) tool developed by the operational analysis group was widely used in NATO and national exercises.

Scientists were supported by administrative and technical teams, in particular, an engineering department that provided the means to carry out the experimental work needed to develop or verify scientific theories.

ACT was formally established on June 19, 2003, and the same day SACLANTCEN changed its name into the NATO Undersea Research Centre (NURC).