Oldest international scientific organization

The oldest global scientific organization is the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which was established as the "Permanent Meteorological Committee" an international scientific congress in Vienna, Austria, on 11 September 1873. This developed into the International Meteorological Organization (IMO) in 1879, and in turn the UN-affiliated WMO in 1950.

Understanding and forecasting weather requires data from a far larger area than the territory any one country. As a consequence, meteorology as a discipline has generally tended towards international collaboration. The first attempt at developing standards for weather measurement was made in 1853, and as countries established their own meteorological agencies, they soon began striking deals to share information. Even the first rudimentary weather forecasts, produced by an early form of the UK Met Office in the 1860s, were based on data sent by telegraph from as far afield as St Petersburg and Madrid.

The original form of the WMO was a seven-person committee, composed of the directors of the major European meteorological agencies. This committee was tasked with drawing up the organizational principles of the planned International Meteorological Organization, the standards it would use, and how it would be governed. After consulting with the colleagues across Europe and North America, they delivered their plans at a meeting in Utrecht in 1878. The IMO came into being at the Rome Conference the following year.

Today the WMO is a UN Specialized Agency, a type of international organization that includes bodies such as the World Health Organization, UNESCO and the International Monetary Fund. Its mission is to standardize the free exchange of meteorological data for the benefit of its 193 member states and territories.