The Secretary of State designs and directs, in coordination with the Secretary of State for Education, the scholarship and study aid programs and coordinated the efforts of the different Spanish public administrations and the European institutions.

The Secretariat of State was created for the first time in 1977[2] with the name of Secretariat of State for Universities and Innovation and was integrated in the Ministry of Education and Science but it was soon replaced by the Ministry of Universities and Science created in 1979.

In his second government, Zapatero revived the Ministry of Science but split the secretariat of state in two.

The General Secretariat for Universities was also eliminated and its competences were assumed, once again, by the Secretary of State for Education.

[6] Once that the crisis was over, the change of government in 2018 it brought with it the enlargement of the State Administration with the creation of new ministerial departments like the Ministry of Science, that assumed its old competences.