History and financing

COAT was initiated with a grant from the Norwegian government at the start of the Fram Centre in 2011. This grant, along with support from partner institutions, financed the planning work that led to the publication of the COAT science plan in 2013. After the science plan was published, UiT, NP, and the Fram Centre provided funds to operate monitoring series on the Varanger Peninsula/Várnjárgga and Svalbard/Sválbarda. The monitoring series have their origins in previous projects/programs. They are now included as core series in COAT.

Since 2016, the Norwegian Environment Agency has also provided significant establishment and operational funds to two of COAT's monitoring modules on the Varanger Peninsula. The Research Council of Norway (NFR) has at the same time provided project funds for the development of analysis and prediction models based on COAT monitoring series.

In 2016, COAT was included in the Research Council of Norway's (NFR) "Roadmap for National Research Infrastructure." This has triggered large grants from NFR and the Tromsø Research Foundation for the establishment of instrumentation & logistics systems for COAT on both Svalbard and the Varanger Peninsula, as well as a common digital infrastructure (data portal). This development of COAT infrastructure has also given rise to the two technology development projects "COAT Tools" and "Distributed Arctic Observatories (DAO)" financed by UiT and the Tromsø Research Foundation (COAT Tools) and NFR (DAO).

These infrastructure and technology projects were completed in 2023 so that COAT is equipped for full operation both on Svalbard and on the Varanger Peninsula. From 2024 onwards, the long-term operation of COAT is financed through the state budget.