In 1989 The Engineer School was designated by the Inspectorate of the Engineer Corps to organize the first courses about the mine clearance operations of unexploded ordnances belonging to the Nations of the former Treaty of Warsaw, in order to arrange the intervention of Engineer specialists in Afghanistan and Kuwait.
In 1992 the BOE Courses (Explosive Ordnances Clearance) were instituted to train the Officers and Non-Commissioned Officers of the Engineer Corps to employ in peacekeeping international operations.
In that way the Engineer Corps had again one of its main institutional tasks that is the clearance of minefields and the battle area, in favour of the International Organizations. The greatest didactical efforts aimed to study mines and to adopt mine clearance methods, in consequence of experiences in homeland since the immediate postwar. However it was necessary to study in depth all the other ordnances, subject of competence of the Bomb Disposal Engineers of the dissolved Artilleries Directions.
The courses had an immediate success for the qualities of the technical teachers and the possibility to learn English. The always more frequent participation of the Army in the international missions encouraged the continuation of the courses with up-to-date programs based on the experiences in the different operational theatres.
In October 1996, with the patronage of the Inspectorate of the Engineer Corps and the approval of the General Staff of the Army, the first experimental nucleus of the Clearance Operational Centre was instituted. Meanwhile a long phase of study was started to analyze the themes related to the mine clearance, in which the School improved the ongoing courses.
On 1st October 1997 the experimental structure was reinforced with a new Centre, renewing the equipment and the way to consider the problem from the operational, training and logistic points of view.
On 1st October 1998, with the promulgation of the "Directive for the reorganization of the sector of the explosive ordnances clearance" by the General Staff of the Army, the Clearance Operational Centre of Armed Force was founded as unique reference pole for the sector; in that way it was possible to level out the training, the procedures and the language in managing one of the most important task of the Army.
The Clearance Operational Centre, inheriting the professionalisms acquired in the sector from the historical school (Engineer School, bomb disposal Engineers School in Rome, Armament Specialists Centre of the Army in Piacenza, bomb disposal Engineers and Anti-sabotage Section of the Transports and Materials School in Rome), started to become an efficient and modern tool.
After about nine years of intense work, the General Staff of the Army established the introduction of an Active Obstacle Department in the Centre, modifying the components and the name into Counter Obstacle Training Centre since 2nd March 2007.
However this latest measure of reorganization did not determined a reached stability because there would be other changes in order to face the different international situations. On 1st February 2011 it assumed the current name of National Centre of Excellence for the C-IED.