HGSS History of Geo- and Space Sciences HGSS Hist. Geo Space. Sci. 2190-5029 Copernicus Publications Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/hgss-2-123-2011 History of EISCAT – Part 2: The early history of EISCAT in Finland Oksman J. 1 Professor emeritus of the University of Oulu, Finland 19 12 2011 2 2 123 128 Copyright: © 2011 J. Oksman 2011 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This article is available from https://hgss.copernicus.org/articles/2/123/2011/hgss-2-123-2011.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://hgss.copernicus.org/articles/2/123/2011/hgss-2-123-2011.pdf

The idea of a Nordic incoherent scatter facility, proposed by Bengt Hultqvist, was for the first time discussed among representatives of the three Nordic countries Norway, Sweden and Finland in 1969 in Oulu, Finland. In the years to follow, when other countries joined in and the plans of the facility to be built gradually received concrete forms, Finland participated in the planning work, in spite of the large costs to be expected. When in negotiations with the Nordic partners in 1975 the share of Finland in EISCAT was reduced to five per cent and when the existing facilities and personnel at Sodankylä could be taken into account in the Finnish share, the Academy of Finland was finally ready to join EISCAT.