International Union of Radio Science

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The International Union of Radio Science (in French, l'Union Radio-Scientifique Internationale - URSI) is one of 26 international scientific unions affiliated to the International Council for Science.

The URSI was officially created in 1919, during the Constitutive Assembly of the International Research Council (now ICSU), based on the earlier Commission Internationale de Telegraphie sans Fil (1913-1914) when the only radio communication system was radiotelegraphy. It has held a general assembly every three years from 1922.

The URSI's original objective (to encourage "scientific studies of radiotelegraphy, especially those which require international cooperation") has been broadened to include all radio science, from telecommunications to radio astronomy, acquisition of radar information about distant passive objects, studies of the radiation stimulated or spontaneously emitted by these objects, and active modification of objects by radio waves, within the spectrum from extremely low frequency to the optical domain.