Forms and actors
In France, the Csti does not come under any particular territorial hierarchy. It finds itself in a variety of area authorities involved in the cultural field, a variety that can be seen in the investment methods and the types of operations supported.
This heterogeneous situation is the result of history: the museums, founded at the end of the 19th century, are more often dependent on towns.
Numerous popular education associations dating back to the 1930s continue to criss-cross the land.
The decentralisation laws (1983) granted a science centre to every region that they in turn developed according to local circumstances: some became establishments open to the public, and others became resource centres. During the 90s, these are the counties that, because of their proximity to schoolchildren or for local reasons, more often than not decided to support an establishment open to the public.
More recently, scientific culture has been included in the missions of universities. At the same time, some cultural and scientific structures have already linked up with a higher education establishment.
