Decision making on matters of science and technology for actions undertaken by governments from every political regime implies participation, to a greater or lesser degree, of researchers, technologists and scholars. With various structures, economies throughout promote a global future in which the wellbeing of nations is based on knowledge. The influence from the participation of researchers, technologists and scholars in building this portrayed future, chosen by a wide international community, gains importance on a daily basis.

This new edition in the activity of researchers, with one foot in the laboratories, classrooms and other spaces of study and research, and with the other in the government spheres, is the way in which the life in research, experimental development and innovation (R+D+I) is currently structured.

In time, researchers noted that the policies designed by politicians and government officials in charge of support for R+D+I in government offices, on occasion reflected misinformation about the peculiarities of R+D+I. Thus researchers arrived at the current process of rapprochement with the administrators of the government’s policy and expense for R+D+I.
During the 80s, the need for a State policy on the subject was recognized. This State policy had to crosscut through the fabric of society and not be subject to unclear visions but instead be in tune with a short-, medium- and long-term development plan for the Nation.

This is the foundation of Mexico’s Science Consulting Council of the Presidency of the Republic (CCC), conformed by researchers, technologists and scholars that have been honored with the Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes (National Award for Science and Arts), and has a twofold mission: Advising the country’s President on matters pertaining to science and technology (C&T), and on problems that require the most sophisticated application of specialized knowledge.

The Members of the CCC are top level researchers that offer a collegiate opinion, as opposed to other advisors and consultants available to the President, such as Conacyt, the Scientific and Technological Forum or various Academies.

Societies and their governments have always turned to and consulted their wise men and sages. Today, the scientists and technologists have taken control of knowledge and only they have a certain capacity for predictions based on accumulated knowledge. The rapid advance and the dynamics characterizing the interchange of information in today’s knowledge marketplace, is intimately related with the multiplicity of technological developments and therefrom, with the unstoppable accumulation of technical innovations.

Knowledge is a strategic weapon just as relevant as food is for the people. Powerful nations such as the United States, France, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany and Israel, among others, that control to a greater or lesser extent existing relations in the world, see in the power of knowledge one of their most prized assets.

Advisory offices or bodies for many governments are often placed on the hands of the most brilliant men and women because it is them who own the best quality and the most quantity of knowledge, as well as also having the better international contacts. There are many different advisory bodies in various countries, but few have a body composed only of people that have been honored with the highest award granted by their governments. Such is the case of Mexico’s CCC.