The Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center was established in 1986 as a non-profit research foundation affiliated with the University of Bergen. According to its bylaws “The Foundation’s goal is to perform interdisciplinary research and development with focus on remote sensing and modelling with respect to scientific problems within the natural sciences.”

The Nansen Center generate interdisciplinary scientific expertise in Earth system environmental and climate research, satellite remote sensing, modelling and data assimilation. Its research foci are in Earth sciences, particularly covering topics such as physical and biology oceanography, meteorology, sea ice/cryosphere studies, hydrology and climate studies, including remote sensing in all these themes. Satellite remote sensing has been a key research topic and research departments on marine and polar remote sensing and process studies were established from the start. The Center has been leading, both at national and international level, in the early developments of satellite oceanography for marine and polar research. Research staffs are members of several scientific advisory groups and committees of the major space agencies and national and international committies.

Furthermore, the GC Rieber Climate Institute was established in 1996 and the Mohn-Sverdrup Center for Global Ocean Studies and Operational Oceanography in 2004 as additional research departments at the Center, complementing and expanding the Earth science research activities at the Center. The Nansen Center is one of four partners in the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research (BCCR) that has been awarded the status as a Norwegian centre of excellence (SFF) coordinated by the University of Bergen also in coorperation with Institute of Marine Research and Uni Research. The Nansen Center is also a founding partner of the national Centre for Climate Dynamics (SKD) in Bergen.

The Nansen Center has the following organizational structure per 2011;