The CDTI Innovation updates its Statutes to guide innovation financing towards competitive, sustainable and inclusive growth
The publication on April 1 in the Official State Gazette of Royal Decree 263/2026, approving the new Statutes of the CDTI Innovation, marks a milestone in the history of the Spanish innovation agency, updating the legal framework that regulates its organization and operation and projecting a renewed institutional vision with better defined functions, more robust governance and an action expressly aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals and with the ambition to generate economic, social and environmental impact.
Almost four decades after the approval of its first regulation, the CDTI Innovation has a new statutory framework that reflects both the evolution of the science, technology and innovation system itself in Spain and the requirements of a current public entity. Royal Decree 263/2026, published on April 1 in the BOE, is not a reform of technical adjustment but the formalization of an institutional project that has matured over recent years and is now complemented by the normative support that completes the process foreseen in the current strategic cycle.
The new text consolidates the position of the CDTI Innovation as a financing agent of the Spanish System of Science, Technology and Innovation and does so with a formulation of its broader and more demanding purpose. The mission of fostering innovation through the promotion of R&D and the incorporation of new technologies remains at the centre, but is now opening up to an orientation that explicitly integrates sustainability and the contribution to social welfare, health, quality of life and progress.
In this sense, the new Statutes incorporate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a guiding criterion for general action, so that the innovation that the CDTI finances and promotes will not only be measured in terms of business competitiveness but also by its ability to contribute to the great challenges of our time. This formulation naturally connects with the CDTI Strategic Plan 2024-2027, which already places the country challenges (ecological transition, territorial cohesion, digitalization, demographic challenge) as the main vectors of action.
Along with a renewed mission, the new Statutes more clearly order the set of functions that the CDTI had already been performing in practice. The financing of innovative projects, the promotion of collaboration between companies and agents of the scientific-technological system, the public purchase of innovation, participation in risk capital instruments and support for internationalization are now articulated in a coherent and updated framework, in line with the Law of Science and the Law of the Legal Regime of the Public Sector.
The new text also devotes special attention to the governance structure of the CDTI, establishing clearly the governing and executive bodies (Governing Council, Presidency and Directorate-General) and the advisory bodies, in particular the Advisory Council and the Steering Committee.
But the most noteworthy, from the perspective of good governance, are some other axes such as the demand for a balanced presence between women and men in the collegiate and unipersonal bodies of government and management, which the CDTI assumes as an institutional standard principle and not as a programmatic objective; the regulation of the appointment of management personnel under criteria of merit, capacity, suitability, publicity and concurrence, which reinforces the professionalization of the entity and its alignment with the best practices of the public sector; and a strengthened framework of control, supervision and accountability, which includes audit of accounts, continuous supervision and validation of the Court of Accounts.
The new CDTI Statutes come at a time when the debate on the role of public innovation in Europe and Spain is more alive than ever. The transition to a more sustainable economy, the need to strengthen the industrial and technological base and the urgency of articulating collective responses to the great challenges of the 21st century require innovation agencies with clear mandates, sound governance and the ability to act strategically. In this context, the CDTI Innovation has the legal framework that will allow it to advance in the commitment of action and response to this demand.
CDTI Innovation
The Center for Technological Development and Innovation, CDTI E.P.E. It is the innovation agency of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, whose objective is the promotion of technological innovation in the business environment. The mission of the CDTI is to ensure that the Spanish business fabric generates and transforms scientific and technical knowledge into globally competitive, sustainable and inclusive growth. In 2025, within the framework of the Strategic Plan 2024-2027, the CDTI provided more than 2 billion euros of support to Spanish companies and startups.
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