Sector ministries vary in the degree to which they operate funding agencies related to their mission, but the great majority run government laboratories or public research institutes to supply the research they need (and often also to provide them with other technical services). The planning process appears to be inclusive, individual organisations contribute and it is not wholly top-down. Unusually, Colciencias functions both as a ministry and as an agent that largely does the work of a combined innovation agency and research council. Like a government minister, its president answers directly to the President of the Republic, it has its own line in the national budget, and it co-ordinates innovation and research policy across the whole of the national government.