The story
The NPI was established in 1948 under the Norwegian Ministry of Industry, but must be seen as an extension of Norwegian Svalbard and Arctic Ocean Survey, Norges Svalbard og Ishavsundersøkelser (NSIU), which was founded on 1 March 1928. Previously, Norway's Svalbard research had been organized as the Norwegian state-supported Spitsbergen Expeditions, with roots dating back to 1906. With the establishment of the NSIU, Norwegian research activity in eastern Greenland increased.
With Harald Sverdrup as the first director, the NPI's mandate included Antarctica and was considerably broader than that of its forerunner, the NSIU. From 1949 to 1952, the NPI led the multinational Maudheim Expedition to Antarctica and had a base in Queen Maud Land from 1956 to 1960 (Norway Station), during the International Geophysical Year, also known as the third International Polar Year. The NPI established the permanent research station Troll in Antarctica in 1989–90; Troll has been operated as a year-round research station since 2005. The NPI carried out annual summer expeditions to Svalbard and, starting in 1968, has had a year-round research station in Ny-Ålesund. In 1979, the NPI became a directorate under the Ministry of the Environment (currently the Ministry of Climate and Environment).
In 1993, the decision was made in the Norwegian Parliament to move the headquarters of the NPI from Oslo, Norway's capital, to Tromsø, a coastal city north of the Arctic Circle. The process was completed in 1998. This relocation led to changes in the institute's profile and areas of interest as departments were reorganized, new personnel recruited, new positions established and research priorities shifted.
From Wikipedia’s article on Norwegian Polar Institute, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4