SECIHTI (Formerly CONACYT/CONAHCYT): What Changed

SECIHTI, CONAHCYT, and CONACYT are three names for the same lineage of Mexican federal science institutions — not three different bodies. If you are working with a partner institution, a scholarship recipient, an active MOU, or a co-funding agreement that predates 2023 or 2025, this guide explains exactly what changed at each rename, what stayed the same, and what to check before you assume an old reference is still accurate.

Quick answer

CONACYT (Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología) was Mexico’s national science council from 1970 until May 2023.
CONAHCYT (Consejo Nacional de Humanidades, Ciencias y Tecnologías) replaced it on May 9, 2023, under a new federal science law. It remained a decentralized public body — the name and governing structure changed, but it was not yet a full cabinet ministry.
SECIHTI (Secretaría de Ciencia, Humanidades, Tecnología e Innovación) replaced CONAHCYT on January 1, 2025. This is the substantive change: CONAHCYT was elevated from a decentralized council to a full cabinet-level secretariat (ministry), one of 21 secretariats in the executive branch under President Claudia Sheinbaum.
The official domain is secihti.mx. Existing scholarship and cooperation agreements made under the CONACYT/CONAHCYT name are, per SECIHTI’s own communications and partner-institution reporting, continuing under the new name rather than lapsing — but institutions should confirm status on a per-agreement basis (see below).

The lineage, in order

CONACYT (1970–2023): the original science council

The Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología was created in 1970 as Mexico’s central body for coordinating national science and technology policy, funding graduate scholarships (becas), and overseeing a network of Public Research Centers (Centros Públicos de Investigación). For over five decades this was the name international partners, funders, and universities dealt with directly.

2023: CONACYT becomes CONAHCYT — a legal restructuring, not a rebrand

In December 2022, then-president Andrés Manuel López Obrador sent Congress a bill replacing the existing science law with the Ley General en materia de Humanidades, Ciencias, Tecnologías e Innovación. The bill passed the Chamber of Deputies on April 27, 2023, the Senate on April 29, 2023, and was published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación on May 8, 2023, taking effect the following day.

This was more than a name change:

Name and mandate broadened: “Ciencia y Tecnología” became “Humanidades, Ciencias y Tecnologías” — the council’s remit was formally extended to the humanities and social sciences, not just natural science and technology, and the new law framed access to science as a constitutional human right.
Governing board changed: Mexico’s foreign ministry (Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores), the army (Sedena), and the navy (Semar) were added to CONAHCYT’s Junta de Gobierno (governing board).
Civil-society advisory body eliminated: the Foro Consultivo Científico y Tecnológico — a consultative forum with representation from scientific associations and independent researchers — was dissolved under the new law, a change that drew criticism from parts of Mexico’s research community at the time.
Legal status unchanged: CONAHCYT remained what CONACYT had been — a decentralized public body (organismo público descentralizado) of the federal government, not a cabinet secretariat. Its head did not sit in the president’s cabinet as a secretary of state.

For international partners, the practical 2023 change was almost entirely about naming and internal governance: correspondence, MOUs, and program names needed updating to CONAHCYT, but the body’s legal standing relative to other federal agencies did not change.

2025: CONAHCYT becomes SECIHTI — a full cabinet ministry

On November 28, 2024, President Claudia Sheinbaum’s decree creating the Secretaría de Ciencia, Humanidades, Tecnología e Innovación was published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación. SECIHTI began operating on January 1, 2025, with Rosaura Ruiz Gutiérrez as its first secretary.

This is the change that actually matters for how the institution functions:

Cabinet-level status: SECIHTI is now one of 21 secretariats forming Mexico’s federal executive cabinet, alongside bodies like Sedena, SRE, and Salud. CONAHCYT and CONACYT before it were coordinated bodies reporting into the executive branch but were not themselves cabinet ministries; SECIHTI’s secretary now sits at that table directly.
Sector coordination expanded: SECIHTI coordinates the same network of roughly two dozen Public Research Centers previously under CONAHCYT, plus two universities newly folded into the sector — the Universidad Rosario Castellanos (UNRC) and the Universidad de la Salud (UNISA).
Stated program continuity: SECIHTI’s own communications describe the transition as providing continuity to existing support programs, including the national researcher-recognition system and national and international scholarship programs, rather than relaunching them from scratch.

What SECIHTI does now

SECIHTI’s mandate, as a full secretariat, covers stewardship of Mexico’s national humanities, science, technology, and innovation policy: funding graduate and postgraduate scholarships, coordinating public research centers, administering the national researcher-recognition system, and representing Mexico in international science-cooperation agreements. It operates from secihti.mx, which is the current official domain — older bookmarks or citations pointing to conacyt.mx or conahcyt.mx should be treated as historical and re-verified.

Current funding and scholarship programs

As published on SECIHTI’s own site, the flagship program is the Programa de Becas para Estudios de Posgrado (Postgraduate Studies Scholarship Program), Mexico’s largest graduate-scholarship program, administered through several modalities:

Becas Nacionales — national scholarships for graduate study within Mexico, open to Mexican and, under specific program rules, foreign applicants enrolled in an eligible Mexican graduate program.
Becas al Extranjero — scholarships for Mexican nationals to pursue graduate study abroad, typically administered through bilateral collaboration agreements with partner countries and institutions.
Becas para Estudiantes Extranjeros — scholarships specifically for foreign students.
Estancias Posdoctorales Nacionales and Estancias Posdoctorales y Sabáticas en el Extranjero — postdoctoral and sabbatical stay programs, domestic and abroad.
Repatriaciones y Retenciones — funding to repatriate Mexican researchers working abroad or retain researchers who might otherwise leave.
Targeted equity modalities, including Apoyo a Madres Jefas de Familia (support for single mothers) and Fortalecimiento Académico para Indígenas (academic support for Indigenous students).

International cooperation scholarships continue to run through bilateral and multilateral agreements — for example, scholarships jointly administered with the Organization of American States (OAS) and Mexico’s international development cooperation agency, AMEXCID, for citizens of other OAS member states studying in Mexico.

What this means for international partners and institutions

If your institution has an existing relationship — an MOU, a co-funded fellowship, a data-sharing agreement, a joint call — that predates one or both renames, treat the following as your checklist rather than assuming continuity or disruption either way:

Agreements generally continue under the new name, not automatically void. Institutional reporting from partner universities administering SECIHTI-linked scholarship agreements describes existing agreements as remaining in effect and moving through renewal in the ordinary course, not as having lapsed at either rename. Treat this as the general pattern, not a guarantee for any specific agreement — confirm status directly with your program contact.
Update the counterparty name in new paperwork. New MOUs, grant agreements, co-authorship disclosures, and CVs referencing an active relationship should use “SECIHTI” going forward, not CONACYT or CONAHCYT, unless you are specifically documenting historical funding (e.g., “funded by CONACYT” for an award made before 2023 is accurate as history, not as a live counterparty name).
Re-verify contacts, not just the name. A cabinet-level restructuring of this kind routinely moves program offices and staff; a contact or office that was correct under CONAHCYT is not guaranteed to still be correct under SECIHTI. Confirm current program-specific contacts via secihti.mx rather than relying on saved CONACYT/CONAHCYT-era contact details.
Expect some partner-side lag in naming. Third-party materials — international scholarship aggregators, some partner-university funding pages, even some multilateral program pages — may still reference “CONACYT” or “CONAHCYT” for some time after a rename; this reflects update lag on the partner side, not an indication that the Mexican institution itself still operates under the old name.
The 2023 and 2025 changes are not equivalent in weight. If you are assessing institutional authority or signing authority for an agreement, the 2025 change (decentralized council → cabinet secretariat) is the one with real legal-status implications; the 2023 change was primarily a name/mandate/governance-board change within the same legal category of body.

A note on why this topic looks like it has huge search volume

Search-volume tools show very large numbers against bare terms like “CONACYT” and “CONAHCYT.” That volume is overwhelmingly domestic Mexican traffic from individuals checking the status of their own scholarship application through SECIHTI’s applicant portal — not international research-administration demand for institutional or funding-program information. If you encounter volume figures for these terms elsewhere, treat them as scholarship-portal-status search behavior, not as a signal of how many international institutions are researching SECIHTI’s structure or programs; the two audiences search the same terms for almost entirely different reasons.

Frequently asked questions

Is it still accurate to call this body “CONACYT”?

Only when referring to something that happened before May 2023 — a grant awarded, a program run, an agreement signed under that name. For anything current, the accurate name is SECIHTI.

Did the 2023 CONACYT-to-CONAHCYT rename change funding programs, or was it just a name change?

Both, to different degrees. The name, legal mandate (extended explicitly to humanities), and governing board composition changed under the 2023 law. The institution’s legal status — a decentralized public body, not a cabinet ministry — did not change until the 2025 SECIHTI restructuring.

What is the actual legal difference between CONAHCYT and SECIHTI?

CONAHCYT was a decentralized public body (organismo público descentralizado) coordinated within the federal government. SECIHTI is a full cabinet-level secretariat — one of Mexico’s 21 executive-branch ministries — created by presidential decree published November 28, 2024, and operating since January 1, 2025. That is a change in institutional standing, not just branding.

Are CONACYT- or CONAHCYT-era scholarship and cooperation agreements still valid?

SECIHTI’s communications and partner-institution reporting describe existing agreements as continuing rather than lapsing at the rename. Confirm the status of any specific agreement directly with your program contact rather than assuming automatic continuity, since renewal timing and terms vary by program.

What is SECIHTI’s official website?

secihti.mx. Older links to conacyt.mx or conahcyt.mx should be treated as historical and re-checked, since domains for renamed Mexican federal bodies do not always redirect cleanly or immediately.

Does SECIHTI still run Mexico’s national researcher-recognition system?

Yes — SECIHTI’s own communications describe continuity for the national researcher-recognition system alongside the national and international scholarship programs, as part of the sector it coordinates.

Related CASRAI resources

For comparable national funding-body profiles used by international research offices, see CASRAI’s guides to FAPESP (São Paulo Research Foundation) and CNPq (Brazil), or the broader Grants Management & Research Funding hub for related funder profiles, award compliance, and proposal-development guidance.