The Associação Oficina Ciência Viva de Tavira has as founding partners the Tavira City Council, the University of Algarve and the National Agency for Scientific Culture-Ciência Viva. It was created with the intention of creating a Science Center in Tavira, realizing the characteristics of the new generations of Science Centers, this is capable of introducing the activity of Science as part of its exhibition activity, by creating accessible spaces for the public activity of laboratory type, but also assuming a role in the community to stimulate the debate around issues of public impact related to science and technology.
The Ciência Viva Center in Tavira opened to the public on April 21, 2005 with the presence of the Minister of Science and Technology, Mariano Gago, the Director of the National Agency for Scientific Culture and the Network of Ciência Viva Centers, Rosalia Vargas, of the President from the Municipality of Tavira, Macário Correia and also from his friend, supporter and even to some extent the patron of this science center, Manuel Paiva, residing in Tavira, when not in Brussels, at the University of Brussels, dealing with the teaching of physics and with the investigation of physiology in conditions of weightlessness.