Ciência Viva – Agência Nacional para a Cultura Científica e Tecnológica

Ciência Viva was born in Portugal in 1996 on the initiative of José Mariano Gago, then Minister of Science and Technology, as a government program dedicated to the promotion of education and scientific culture.

In 1998 it became an association of scientific institutions, adopted the name Ciência Viva – National Agency for Scientific and Technological Culture and began an expansion that transformed it into what it is today: an organization established on a national scale, with a network of 21 Centers of Science spread throughout the territory, which feeds a social movement in favor of science and scientific culture that involves hundreds of thousands of researchers and citizens, students and teachers, young people and adults.

Ciência Viva was constituted from the beginning as an open program and promoter of alliances between different sectors of Portuguese society, from universities to elementary schools, from companies to research laboratories, from municipalities to private associations and professional organizations.