From the construction times (1993) to the creation of the THEMIS S.L. company, THEMIS has been a joint operation between Spain, Italy, and France, ruled by several agreements at international level, mostly:

• An international treaty about “Astrophysics in the Canary Islands” linking France and Spain. This treaty is threefold, from level 1 (member states) to level 3 (institutes, in this case the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), and has different lifetimes depending on the level of the agreement
• A convention regulating the use and exploitation of the installation between the Italian Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) and the French CNRS, which has been valid until 2009.

The private company THEMIS, S.L. was owned and has been operated jointly by France and the Italy public research entities to allow for a rational and moneywise exploitation and maintenance of the telescope, located withing the Teide Observatory of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias in the Canary Islands.

The THEMIS Limited Company (THEMIS S.L.) has been created on March 2000, 23rd as a Spanish rights company, and is registered at the Tenerife Trade Register Board with CIF B-38583886. Although it has regular commercial statutes, it actually acts as a non-profit organization, having a capital of 3016 euros. The shareholders (owners of the company) were the French “Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique” (CNRS) for 80%, and the Italian “Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche” (CNR) for 20%.

Since July 2018, THEMIS S.L.U, a uni-personal limited society registered at the Tenerife Trade Register Board with CIF B-38583886 is the successor of the former company. This new structure is 100% owned and subsidized by the French CNRS-INSU (Institut National des sciences de l'Univers).

The installation of the THEMIS solar telescope at the Teide Observatory of the IAC, triggered the need for the CNRS to maintain on-site a permanent staff of French civil servant to manage and supervise THEMIS scientific operations. The continuous presence of CNRS scientists and engineers on the island of Tenerife was made possible creating dedicated CNRS units which form evolve throughout the years. Along those years, these units have been staffed by 2 to 4 persons (engineers and scientists) at a given time.

Up until 2008, THEMIS has been treated by the CNRS as a “Très Grand Equipement” (TGE facility). Since this moment it has been directly managed and financed by the Institut National des sciences de l'Univers (INSU).

The first “Unité Propre de Service” (CNRS own service unit), UPS 853, lasted from 2000 to 2014. It was then replaced by UPS 3718, lasting until 2021, when the International Research Lab, FSLAC, was created.

Since 2021, a much more significant structure has been created as a joint initiative between the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) and the CNRS. This new structure is an international research laboratory (IRL) named French-Spanish Laboratory for Astrophysics in Canarias (FSLAC) with the IRL2009 label within CNRS. FSLAC has wider scientific objectives than the former service-only structures, and can potentially host more personal.

© 2025 CNRS-THEMIS
Terms of use: unless otherwise specified, all graphical (webcam records, movies, pictures) or non-graphical material (text) from this site is property of CNRS-THEMIS under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 license.