NATO advanced study institutes of Information Science and foundations of Information Science

The purpose of this article is to give an account of the role that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), NATO Scientific Affairs Division, NATO Science Committee, Advanced Study Institutes, as well as the events preceding them at MITRE Corporation and the Electronic Systems Division, United States Air Force Systems Command had in the development of Information Science. These two activities, and others that preceded them, are presented from a historical perspective as a part of the evolution and development of Information Science. During this period (1960–1964), as the result of a number of converging initiatives, a synthesizing concept emerged that could be applied in undertaking the analysis and design of C2 (information) systems. This concept, grounded in cybernetics and related to the idea that all organisms are information systems, would constitute the framework for the analysis and design of such (C2) systems. This construct provided a basis for the generation and conduction of three MITRE/ESD congresses and later, the NATO Scientific Committee Advanced Study Institutes. The theoretical and technical challenge to an understanding of command and control (information) systems, and the importance and influence of this challenge in the evolution of Information Science, as a discipline, is discussed. The content of both the MITRE/ESD congresses and the four NATO Advanced Study Institutes are abstracted and presented. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.