NILU – Norsk institutt for luftforskning

Norwegian Institute for Air Research

Head office

  • PO Box 100, NO-2027 Kjeller, Norway
  • Tel.: +47-63 898000; Fax: +47-63 898050; E-mail: NILU@nilu.no

Website: www.NILU.no

  • Director                      : Kari Nygaard
  • Deputy Director          : Ole-Anders Braathen
  • International liaison    : Britt Ann Kåstad Høiskar (bah@nilu.no)

Organisation and objectives

NILU was established in 1969 and became a private research foundation from 1980.

Through its research NILU increases the understanding of air pollution and climate change including the composition of the atmosphere and impacts of hazardous substances. Based on its research, NILU markets integrated services and products within monitoring, chemical analyses, assessment, planning and consulting. NILU is concerned with increasing public awareness about climate change and environmental pollution. NILU’s 197 employees are working in an international network and the institute receives more than 30% of its turnover from international projects.

Activities

NILU’s work programme covers: Atmospheric composition, GHG and climate change, long range transport of air pollution , urban and industrial pollution, environmental fate of toxins, ecology and economics, health effect studies, particulate matter and aerosols, ozone layer depletion and UV radiation.

NILU monitors climate change, global air quality and air pollution transport pathways through observatories in Norway (Birkenes and ALOMAR at Andøya), in the Arctic (Svalbard, Zeppelin) and in Antarctica (Troll). NILU’s observatories supply researchers all over the world with important data on a wide spectre of pollutants, climate gasses and climate forcing agents.

NILU has a long experience in co-ordinating international research projects. One example is the Programme for Monitoring and Evaluation of the Long-Range Transmission of Air Pollutants in Europe (EMEP), where NILU is responsible for recommending measurement methods and for assembling and evaluating data. NILU has a leading international role in collecting and storing measurement data from atmospheric research and monitoring programmes, and is responsible for a series of international databases.

NILU offers a range of services and products to customers in Norway and internationally based on more than 40 years of experience in handling air pollution issues.

NILU is accredited according to EN-ISO/IEC 17025 and NS-EN ISO 9001:2000 and holds Norway’s national reference laboratory for air pollution and ozone.