URSI was officially created in 1919, during the Constitutive Assembly of the International Research Council (now ICSU), based on the earlier French: Commission Internationale de Telegraphie sans Fil (1913–1914) when the only radio communication system was radiotelegraphy.

In addition to publishing the open access journal URSI Radio Science Letters,[1] it sponsors the journals Advances in Radio Science, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, and Radio Science, last of which is co-sponsored by the American Geophysical Union.

URSI's original objective (to encourage "scientific studies of radiotelegraphy, especially those which require international cooperation") has been broadened to include all radio science, from telecommunications to radio astronomy, acquisition of radar information about distant passive objects, studies of the radiation stimulated or spontaneously emitted by these objects, biological effects of electromagnetic radiation and active modification of objects by radio waves, within the spectrum from extremely low frequency to the optical domain.

[2] The URSI includes different individual membership grades: This article about a scientific organization is a stub.

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