Welcome to ECO Science Foundation (ECOSF), a Specialized Agency of the ECO for promotion of Science and Technology leading to economic development.

The Basic Charter of ECO was formed under the Treaty of Izmir as a result of the meeting of the member countries held in Izmir, Turkey on 12th March, 1977. It envisaged the establishment of ECO Science Foundation as a specialized agency of ECO to function as a reservoir of highly skilled scientific and technical manpower and to facilitate promotion of scientific research among the Member States.

The ECO Council of Ministers (COM) at its 3rd meeting held on 6-7 Feb, 1993 at Quetta, Pakistan called for establishing such an institution by 1995. The Charter of the Foundation was signed by all the 10 Member States at the 3rd ECO Summit in 1995 at Islamabad, however, so far only Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan have ratified it. Other Member States viz., Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey and Uzbekistan have to rectify the Charter.

The Istanbul Declaration issued at the 7th Summit on 14 October, 2002 called for an early establishment of the ECO Science Foundation. The 12th and 13th Regional Planning Council in its meetings in March 2002 and April 2003 respectively also expressed the hope that the Basic Document of the ECO Science Foundation would be finalized soon enabling the concerned Pakistani authorities to convene the first meeting of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Foundation to approve the document.

The 1st Expert Group Meeting (1st EGM) was held in Islamabad on 3-4 September 2007 to discuss and finalize inter alia the Additional Protocol to the Charter of ECO Science Foundation which was subsequently approved at the 17th COM meeting held in Herat, Afghanistan. The 2nd EGM was held in Tehran, Iran on 30-31 August, 2010 to review the progress made for establishment of ECOSF with particular reference to decisions made in 1st EGM and prepare for the 1st Meeting of Board of Trustees of ECOSF in Pakistan in the chairmanship of Minster for Science and Technology, Government of Pakistan. The 2nd EGM finalized all the basic documents and recommended for approval by the Board of Trustees of the Foundation.

The 1st meeting of Board of Trustees (BoT) of ECO Science Foundation was held in Islamabad, Pakistan on 20 December, 2011 preceded by a High Level Expert Group (HLEG). The BoT meeting was hosted by the Government of Pakistan, wherein, the Basic Documents of ECO Science Foundation were approved making it functional as a specialized agency of ECO with its own charter, legal personality and autonomy in management to function as a reservoir of highly skilled scientific and technical manpower and to facilitate promotion of scientific research among the member states. The Government of Pakistan has allocated office space to the Foundation in its newly constructed building of Ministry of Science and Technology.

The Foundation, in a short span of time, has been accredited as an Observer/Stakeholder of the Intergovernmental Science and Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) based in Bonn, Germany.