This project, which combined science with the dissemination and promotion of maritime culture, was stalled by the Spanish Civil War. With the return to democracy and the approval of the Spanish Constitution and the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia, the situation was convenient for taking up the initiative. With the publication of Royal Decree 1964/1982, of 30 July, on the transfer of services from the State to the Generalitat de Catalunya in the field of oceanographic research services, Catalonia assumed the functions in oceanographic research, which, in addition to enabling the organization, planning, promotion of research and execution of the corresponding research programmes, made it possible to create oceanographic research centers.
Thirty-five years had to go by before the Catalan oceanographic project was given its definitive impetus. With the approval in 2017 of Decree 42/2017, of 2 May, on the creation of the collaboration organism, the Catalan Institute of Research for Marine Governance, the ICATMAR has been de facto constituted, for the first time in History, as the Oceanographic Institute of Catalonia.
