Costa Rica’s national science and technology funding landscape is organized around two distinct bodies whose names and roles are frequently confused — not least because CONICIT (Costa Rica’s Consejo Nacional para Investigaciones Científicas y Tecnológicas) is easily mistaken for CONICET, Argentina’s much larger national research council. They are unrelated organizations in different countries with different structures: CONICET is a federal scientific-career and institute-operating agency (see CASRAI’s CONICET Argentina funding and researcher-employment guide), while CONICIT was Costa Rica’s national research-funding council, now in the process of being restructured into a different entity. This guide explains what MICITT and CONICIT actually are, how their roles relate, what changed under Costa Rica’s 2021 institutional reform, and what a research administrator working with a Costa Rican partner or applicant needs to know.
MICITT: The Ministry That Sets Policy and Runs International Calls
MICITT — the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación, Tecnología y Telecomunicaciones (Ministry of Science, Innovation, Technology and Telecommunications) — is a cabinet-level ministry of the Costa Rican government, established in 1990. It sits above the project level: MICITT sets national science, technology, and innovation (STI) policy, coordinates Costa Rica’s National System of Science, Technology and Innovation (Sistema Nacional de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación, SNCTI), and also holds telecommunications-sector oversight — the mandate that gives the ministry its current name.
MICITT’s central strategic document is the National Science, Technology and Innovation Plan (Plan Nacional de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación, PNCTI), most recently published for the 2022–2027 period, which sets the priority areas Costa Rica’s public STI funding is expected to align with.
MICITT is also the government counterpart for bilateral and international research-cooperation agreements. One documented example: following a cooperation arrangement between Costa Rica and Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), research project proposals were submitted jointly to MICITT and BMBF for evaluation, with a subset selected for joint funding. Research administrators should treat MICITT as the entry point for identifying and understanding this kind of government-to-government co-funded call — the ministry, not a project-funding agency in isolation, is who signs and administers these international framework agreements on Costa Rica’s side.
What MICITT is not, in practice, is a grant-disbursing agency in the way a national research council typically is. Historically, that operational funding role sat with CONICIT.
CONICIT: Costa Rica’s (Former) National Research Council
CONICIT — the Consejo Nacional para Investigaciones Científicas y Tecnológicas (National Council for Scientific and Technological Research) — was created on August 22, 1972, under President José Figueres Ferrer, and began operating the following year. Unlike MICITT, CONICIT was an autonomous public institution (not a ministry), with its own board of directors, whose statutory role was to promote and fund scientific and technological research across disciplines — from the basic sciences through applied and technological fields.
In practice, CONICIT administered competitive research funding and maintained Costa Rica’s Scientific and Technological Registry (Registro Científico Tecnológico, RCT), a registry of researchers and research activity used to track the country’s scientific output. CONICIT also operated jointly with MICITT on at least one major program: the Innovation and Human Capital for Competitiveness Program (Programa de Innovación y Capital Humano para la Competitividad, PINN), a multi-year competitive fund for innovation and applied research projects, run under a formal operating agreement between the two bodies.
The 2021 Reform: Ley 9971 and the Promotora Costarricense de Innovación e Investigación
This is the detail most likely to trip up anyone relying on older information: CONICIT, as an independent council, no longer exists in its original form. Costa Rican Law No. 9971 restructured the institution, using CONICIT’s human and financial resources to establish a new entity, the Promotora Costarricense de Innovación e Investigación (Costa Rican Innovation and Research Promoter), and strengthened MICITT’s standing as the ministry over that structure. This was framed as an institutional transformation rather than a shutdown — CONICIT’s funding functions and staff were carried forward into the new body rather than simply discontinued — but it is a real legal and organizational change, not a rebranding of an unchanged agency.
Because a reform of this kind can take time to fully settle into public-facing operations (call names, application portals, and even which body a given open call is issued under), research administrators should not assume older references to “CONICIT” describe the current operating structure. Before advising a researcher or processing an application tied to a Costa Rican co-funder, confirm directly with MICITT and the Promotora Costarricense de Innovación e Investigación which entity is currently issuing and administering the specific call in question, rather than relying on the older CONICIT branding alone.
MICITT vs. CONICIT/Promotora: At a Glance
| Dimension | MICITT | CONICIT / Promotora Costarricense de Innovación e Investigación |
|---|---|---|
| Legal nature | Cabinet-level government ministry | Originally an autonomous public council (1972–2021); reorganized by Ley 9971 (2021) into a promoter-model entity built on CONICIT’s resources |
| Core role | National STI policy-setting, telecommunications oversight, international/bilateral research-cooperation agreements | Operational research and innovation funding, researcher/output registry (historically the RCT) |
| Founded | 1990 | 1972 (as CONICIT); restructured 2021 |
| Typical research-administrator contact point for | Bilateral/international co-funded calls (e.g., with foreign ministries or funding agencies), national STI strategy and priorities (PNCTI) | Competitive domestic research and innovation grant calls, historical grant/registry records predating the 2021 reform |
| Confusable with | — | Argentina’s CONICET (unrelated organization, different country, different structure — see CASRAI’s separate CONICET Argentina guide) |
What This Means for Research Administrators
- Don’t assume “CONICIT” on an older document still describes today’s operating structure. Post-2021, verify whether the current counterpart for a given call or agreement is MICITT, the Promotora Costarricense de Innovación e Investigación, or a program still transitioning between the two.
- Route international/bilateral cooperation questions to MICITT first. Framework agreements with foreign funders (the Germany/BMBF cooperation is the documented example) are negotiated and administered at the ministry level, not by the domestic grant-funding body alone.
- Check the current PNCTI priority areas before assuming a project’s fit. Costa Rica’s public STI funding, like most national systems in the region, is oriented toward the government’s published strategic priorities (the 2022–2027 PNCTI at the time of writing), not open-ended basic-science funding across all fields equally.
- Watch for the CONICIT/CONICET naming collision in your own institutional records, funder databases, and CRIS systems. The two acronyms differ by one letter, describe organizations in different countries with materially different structures and scales, and are genuinely easy to conflate in a spreadsheet or funder-lookup field.
- Compare against other national systems in the region when advising on Latin American research partnerships more broadly — CASRAI’s guides to Argentina’s CONICET and Uruguay’s ANII cover comparable ministry/council-versus-agency distinctions elsewhere in Latin America.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CONICIT still Costa Rica’s national research funding council?
Not in its original independent form. Costa Rican Law No. 9971 (2021) restructured CONICIT, carrying its resources and functions into a new entity, the Promotora Costarricense de Innovación e Investigación, under strengthened MICITT oversight. Older references to CONICIT as a standalone council predate this reform.
What is the difference between Costa Rica’s CONICIT and Argentina’s CONICET?
They are unrelated organizations that happen to have near-identical acronyms. CONICIT was Costa Rica’s national research-funding council (founded 1972, now reorganized). CONICET (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas) is Argentina’s federal scientific research council, a much larger body that also directly employs career researchers and operates a national network of research institutes. See CASRAI’s CONICET Argentina guide for that system specifically.
Which body should I contact about an international or bilateral research call involving Costa Rica?
Start with MICITT. As the ministry, it is the government counterpart that negotiates and administers cooperation frameworks with foreign funding bodies (Germany’s BMBF is a documented example), even when a specific call is co-administered with the domestic funding body.
Does MICITT fund research projects directly?
MICITT’s core role is policy-setting, national STI coordination, telecommunications oversight, and international cooperation agreements, rather than running competitive domestic research grant programs itself. Operational grant funding has historically been the role of CONICIT and is now carried by the restructured Promotora Costarricense de Innovación e Investigación, working under MICITT’s policy umbrella.
What happened to CONICIT’s research registry?
CONICIT maintained the Registro Científico Tecnológico (RCT), a national registry of researchers and research activity. Research administrators needing current registry or output-tracking information for Costa Rica should confirm directly with MICITT or the Promotora Costarricense de Innovación e Investigación what the current post-reform registry mechanism is, rather than assuming the pre-2021 RCT process is unchanged.
This guide reflects publicly available information on Costa Rica’s science and technology funding structure as of this writing; given the 2021 institutional reform is still working through implementation, research administrators should confirm current call sponsorship and program names directly with MICITT and the Promotora Costarricense de Innovación e Investigación before finalizing an application or agreement. For the broader grants-management picture across CASRAI’s coverage, see the grants-management pillar.
