CIMA Foundation was established in 2007, and has considerable research experience behind it.

In the mid-80s the then Minister of Civil Protection Giuseppe Zamberletti gave way to the National Research Groups, on volcano risk, earthquake risk, and risk of floods and landslides. The study of strategies for the mitigation of risk from flooding and landslide was entrusted to Franco Siccardi, who led this line of research until 2004, when the National Groups ended their task.
The realization of the Civil Protection System was recognized as a necessity because, as a result of the research, evidence emerged which demonstrated the inadequacy of many of the hydraulic systems in our country. It highlighted the exposure to floods in the historical centres of our cities, and, in generally, it showed the magnitude of hydro geological risk. The System was directed, to mention only the personalities who have worked better, first by Zamberletti, then by Franco Barberi, by Guido Bertolaso and now by the head of the DPC Franco Gabrielli.

The events, which over the years have led up to the creation oF CIMA Foundation match in many ways and intertwines with the history of the National Civil Protection, of which the National Group for the Prevention of Hydro Geological Disasters, and then CIMA, as University Research Centre (now known as Foundation), was the Institutional Scientific Adviser.

But into CIMA Foundation another strand of experience and knowledge converges: it is the activities of study, research and the development of forecasting models and technologies which have been conducted for over twenty years in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Genova and in the Centro Interuniversity Research Centre on Environmental Monitoring in Savona.

The recently created Foundation CIMA, with over twenty years of research and experience behind it, is a scientific institution established by the Civil Protection, the University of Genoa, the Region of Liguria and the Province of Savona.

The experience of researchers is the link between a great past and a great future for the development of scientific observation and its numerous applications in the field of natural hazards and environmental change.