EISCAT Organisation and Administration

EISCAT is an acronym of European Incoherent SCATter. The Association operates two powerful radar systems (using 224 MHz and 933 MHz); the transmitting site is in Tromsø (Norway) and the scattered signals are received at Tromsø and at additional receiving sites at Sodankylä (Finland) and Kiruna (Sweden). The Association's Headquarters are also in Kiruna.

EISCAT exists as a scientific and educational organization to conduct high latitude upper atmosphere research by the Incoherent Scatter technique and it provides instrumentation and observational opportunities for the scientific community to pursue these goals. It also uses its own staff resources to make long term synoptic observations of the ionosphere and upper atmosphere, to develop new signal processing and radar control hardware and software and to conduct its own research.

The EISCAT Scientific Association is governed by a Council, with members from each of the seven Associate countries (Germany, Finland, France, Japan, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom). The Council is supported by two advisory committees, also with representatives from each Associate. These two committees consider scientific and administrative/financial matters respectively. The executive consists of a Directorate and support staff at the Headquarters, and further scientific and technical staff are located at each of the three experimental sites. The total staff of EISCAT numbers about thirtyfive.

The total capital investment and accumulated operating costs now amount to some 275 million Swedish Crowns (MSEK) distributed between the Associates. Almost three-quarters of the original investment was allocated to the provision of the major hardware components - particularly the transmitters and antennas. The annual operating budget is about 33 MSEK.

EISCAT regularly achieves more than 2000 experiment-hours of operation each year and the accumulated total now exceeds 20000 hours. This time is distributed equally between Common and Special Programmes;

Special Programmes are usually combined into larger campaigns allowing many experiments to be conducted efficiently by groups of visiting scientists, assisted by EISCAT staff. EISCAT provides working space and accommodation for visiting scientists at each of its three sites.

The large number of publications (to the end of 1989), about 250 in the scientific literature, 50 doctoral and master's theses and innumerable presentations at international scientific meetings, all dealing with EISCAT science, makes the EISCAT radar facilities some of the most cost effective of the World's geophysical research projects.

Information about the EISCAT systems and operations can be found in various EISCAT reports; in particular, regular Annual Reports contain detailed summaries of operations, scientific results and reference lists. The latest, covering the years 1998-2001, is available on-line in high (11 Mb) or low (2 Mb) resolutions as well as the submissions (13 Mb - gzipped) to it.