ANID (Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo) is Chile’s national research funding agency, and Fondecyt (Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico) is the flagship competitive research-grant program it administers. If you are a research administrator working with a Chilean co-investigator, evaluating a partner institution’s funding portfolio, or trying to make sense of a CV line that references CONICYT, ANID, or Fondecyt, this guide explains how the pieces fit together.
Quick answer
- ANID is the Chilean government’s national research and development funding agency, operating since January 1, 2020, as the successor to CONICYT (Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica), which had coordinated Chilean science funding since 1967.
- ANID sits within Chile’s Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation (Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología, Conocimiento e Innovación) — it is the funding-agency arm, not the ministry itself.
- Fondecyt is ANID’s oldest and largest competitive grant instrument for individual and small-team basic research, dating to 1981. It is one program within a broader ANID portfolio that also includes Fondef, Fondap, and other funds.
- If you are reviewing a CV or grant history that predates 2020, “funded by CONICYT” and “funded by ANID” can refer to the same underlying program lineage (including Fondecyt itself, which predates ANID by nearly four decades) — the agency name changed, the program did not necessarily restart.
What ANID is and how it fits into Chile’s government structure
ANID (Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo, sometimes rendered in English as the National Research and Development Agency) began operating on January 1, 2020, replacing CONICYT as Chile’s central public agency for funding scientific and technological research. CONICYT had held that role since 1967, and its dissolution into ANID was part of a broader restructuring of Chile’s science-governance system that also created the Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation as a standalone cabinet ministry.
ANID operates as part of that ministry’s structure — the ministry sets national science policy, while ANID is the operational funding body that runs competitive calls (concursos), evaluates proposals, and disburses grants. This is a similar division of labor to other national systems where a policy ministry and an operating funding agency are legally distinct bodies: compare, for instance, how CASRAI’s guide to SECIHTI in Mexico works, where the funding and policy functions sit together in a single cabinet secretariat rather than being split the way Chile splits them between a ministry and ANID.
For institutions and administrators handling older paperwork, agreements, or CVs: a reference to “CONICYT” for anything dated before 2020 is historically accurate and should generally be treated as continuous with the current ANID-administered program of the same name, rather than as evidence of a lapsed or discontinued relationship — though as with any agency transition, confirming current status directly with ANID or the named investigator is the safer practice for anything still active.
ANID’s funding instrument portfolio
ANID does not administer a single grant — it runs a portfolio of funds, each targeting a different stage of the research pipeline or a different research modality. The instruments most relevant to international research administrators include:
- Fondecyt (Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico) — competitive grants for basic research across all fields of knowledge, principally for individual investigators and small teams. Covered in detail below.
- Fondef (Fondo de Fomento al Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico) — established in 1991 to fund applied research and public-private collaboration, oriented toward research with a clearer path to technology transfer or industry application.
- Fondap (Fondo de Financiamiento de Centros de Investigación en Áreas Prioritarias) — larger, longer-horizon funding for research centers in priority areas, rather than individual-investigator grants.
- Fondecyt Postdoctorado and other postdoctoral/early-career lines — funding for postdoctoral researchers, distinct from the Regular and Iniciación lines within Fondecyt itself (see below).
- Sector- and region-specific funds, including a national fund for research and development in health and a regional fund for scientific and technological development, extending ANID’s competitive-funding model beyond the general Fondecyt/Fondef/Fondap core.
For an administrator’s purposes, the practical takeaway is that “ANID funding” is not synonymous with “Fondecyt funding” — Fondecyt is the largest and most internationally visible instrument in the portfolio, but a Chilean researcher’s funding history may equally reference Fondef, Fondap, or a sector-specific ANID fund, each with different review criteria and different research profiles.
Fondecyt in depth
Fondecyt is ANID’s flagship competitive grant program for basic scientific and technological research, and it substantially predates ANID itself: the fund was established in 1981 and began operating in 1982, originally administered by CONICYT and now administered by ANID following the 2020 transition. It has supported research across all fields of knowledge, and is the program most Chilean academic researchers’ funding histories reference at some point in their career.
Fondecyt runs through several selection lines targeting different career stages:
- Regular Selection (Concurso Regular) — the core competitive line for established researchers, funding individual or small-team basic research projects.
- Iniciación en Investigación (Initiation into Research) — introduced in 2006 specifically to support early-career and emerging researchers who would be less competitive against established investigators in the Regular line.
- Postdoctorado (Postdoctoral Selection) — funding for postdoctoral researchers to conduct research within Chile, supporting the transition from doctoral training into an independent research career.
Each line runs as an annual competitive call (concurso) with its own eligibility rules, evaluation panels, and timeline, administered through ANID’s application portal. Because call dates, budget ceilings, and specific eligibility rules change from year to year, an administrator advising a Chilean-affiliated researcher or evaluating a live Fondecyt award should treat ANID’s own program pages as the authoritative current source rather than relying on a fixed calendar — this guide covers Fondecyt’s structure, not a specific year’s competition rules.
What this means for international research offices and partners
- Co-investigator and subaward relationships. If a Chilean researcher on a collaborative project holds Fondecyt (or Fondef/Fondap) funding, that funding sits with ANID as the granting agency, not with the researcher’s ministry or university directly — useful to know when mapping funder relationships for a joint proposal, data management plan, or acknowledgment section.
- CV and biosketch review. A CV listing “CONICYT” funding is not necessarily out of date or inaccurate — it may simply predate the 2020 rename. Treat it the same way you would treat a CV referencing a funding body that has since been renamed elsewhere (see CASRAI’s guides to Research Council of Finland and Mexico’s SECIHTI for comparable rename histories), and verify current status with ANID or the researcher rather than assuming discontinuity either way.
- Distinguishing the fund from the ministry. ANID is the funding agency; Chile’s Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation is the policy ministry it sits under. Correspondence, MOUs, and funder-acknowledgment language should generally name ANID (and, where relevant, the specific fund — Fondecyt, Fondef, Fondap) as the granting body, not the ministry.
- Language and portal access. ANID’s operational materials, application portal, and program rules are published in Spanish. International partners collaborating with Chilean researchers should expect to work through Spanish-language program documentation and, where needed, involve the Chilean institution’s own research office for portal-level application support — this guide is a structural explainer for administrators outside Chile, not a substitute for ANID’s own application guidance.
Frequently asked questions
Is ANID the same thing as CONICYT?
ANID is CONICYT’s successor, not a separate parallel body. ANID began operating January 1, 2020, taking over the national research-funding role CONICYT had held since 1967. References to CONICYT in older documents, grant histories, or CVs describe the same institutional lineage under its earlier name.
Is Fondecyt the same thing as ANID?
No. ANID is the funding agency; Fondecyt is one grant program (the largest and oldest) within ANID’s broader portfolio, which also includes Fondef, Fondap, and other sector- and career-stage-specific funds. Fondecyt predates ANID itself, having been established in 1981 under CONICYT.
What are Fondecyt’s main funding lines?
Three principal selection lines: Regular Selection for established researchers, Iniciación en Investigación (introduced in 2006) for early-career researchers, and a Postdoctoral Selection for postdoctoral research conducted within Chile.
What ministry does ANID report to?
Chile’s Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation. The ministry sets national science policy; ANID is the operational agency that runs competitive funding calls and administers grants.
Are older CONICYT-funded projects still recognized under ANID?
Yes, in the sense that ANID is the same institutional lineage continuing the same programs (including Fondecyt) rather than a body that started funding from zero in 2020. For any specific active agreement or award, confirming current status directly with ANID or the named investigator remains the safer practice.
A note on search volume for “Fondecyt”
Search-volume tools show substantial monthly volume against the bare term “Fondecyt.” That volume is overwhelmingly domestic Chilean traffic — applicants and awardees checking concurso deadlines, results, or portal access for their own application — not international research-administration demand for how Fondecyt fits into ANID’s structure. If you encounter volume figures for “Fondecyt” alone elsewhere, treat them as portal-navigation search behavior rather than a signal of international institutional interest in the program’s structure.
Related CASRAI resources
For comparable national funding-body profiles, see CASRAI’s guides to SECIHTI (Mexico), CNPq (Brazil), FAPESP (São Paulo Research Foundation), Research Council of Norway, and Research Council of Finland, or the broader Grants Management & Research Funding hub for related funder profiles, award compliance, and proposal-development guidance.
