Orientamenti di ricerca del Committee for Education and Cultural Action (Icom-Ceca)

In 1946 Unesco created the International Council of Museums (Icom), an organization with the purpose of coordinating the activities of museums around the world and promoting cooperation. Since then, Icom has extraordinarily grown and is nowadays organized in National committees, reuniting members of each country, and International committees, made of professionals who share the same interests in their works and research. The first International committee created by Icom is the Committee for Education and cultural Action (Ceca), and this proves the priority attributed to museum communication towards the public. This article develops in two parts: in the first, Icom political and administrative structure is described, with the explanation of how it works; in the second, Ceca institutional aims are introduced, and then, its work in the research field of cultural mediation in museums is presented. A complex picture is thus drawn which aims at the definition of educational standards, development indicators and shared procedures, capable of overcoming any cultural, social and logistic difference, from the professionals of cultural mediation in museums all over the world.