Overall Objectives

The overall objectives of the Administrative Department of Science, Technology, and Innovation -Colciencias- are:

1. Create a culture based on the generation, appropriation, and popularization of knowledge, and also on scientific research, innovation, and an on-going learning process.
2. Define the policies to formulate annually a National Plan of Science, Technology, and Innovation.
3. Ground and favor the projection and strategic insertion of Colombia in the dynamics of the international system, which incorporate knowledge and innovation, and also generate possibilities and emerging challenges aimed at the development of the countries and their international relationships within the frame of the global society of knowledge.
4. Articulate and enrich not only research, but also the scientific- technological development, and innovation in the private sector, especially in the productive sector.
5. Foster the strengthening of the scientific, technological capacity in innovation, competitiveness, and undertaking, as well as the formation of researchers in Colombia.
6. Promote the development and the insertion of science, and its basic and applied contents, in the technological and innovative development, if such development has to do with the update and improvement of the quality in formal and non-formal education.
7. Integrate efforts of the different sectors and actors in order to promote strategic areas of knowledge for the development of the country in the fields of basic, social, and human sciences, in accordance with the priorities defined in the National Plan of Development.
8. Strengthen the regional development by means of Departmental Council Meetings about Science, technology, and Innovation, and also by means of integral, innovative policies of a very positive impact, for the decentralization of scientific, technological, and innovation projects, integrating such regional development with  the international dynamics.
9. Define and align processes for the definition of priorities, assignation, articulation, and optimization of all kinds of resources aimed at science, technology, innovation, and their results; such as undertaking and competitiveness.
10. Strengthen the capacity of the country to show an integral behavior in the international sphere in aspects concerning science, technology, and innovation.
11. Promote and strengthen inter cultural investigation, in agreement with the indigenous communities, their authorities and elderly men; such agreement is aimed at protecting cultural diversity, biodiversity, traditional knowledge, and genetic resources.