Jorge Vargas Cullell

Jorge Vargas Cullell is the Director for "Programa Estado de la Nación Consejo Nacional de Rectores (CONARE) - Defensoría de los Habitantes de los Habitantes". As an academic researcher, his research topics are: State Reform, Quality of Democracy and Citizen Support for Democracy – his area of expertise is Central America, with a comparative Latin American perspective.

2012- current: Director of the State of the Nation Program. Since 1995, the Program has published twenty-eight (28) annual State of the Nation Reports, assessing Costa Rica’s developmental performance on economic, social, environmental and political aspects, in which Cullell contributed in 25 editions. In 1999, 2003, 2008, 2011, 2016, and 2021 it published six (6) Central American State of the Region Reports on Sustainable Human Development. Cullell oversaw the preparation of eight (8) Reports on State of the Education (2005-2021), supervised the I, II, III and IV State of the Judiciary in Costa Rica (2015, 2017, 2020, 2022), commissioned by the Costa Rican Supreme Court, and the online Platform for Science, Technology and Innovation “Hipatia” and updates (2014-2023).

In 2001, the State of the Nation Program published the Citizen Audit on the Quality of Democracy in Costa Rica. Cullell co-own the moral intellectual property right of the initiative, and ceded the legal right to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP)

In the last two decades he also worked as a researcher-consultant for the University of Vanderbilt (USA) supporting the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP); the Swedish Agency for International Development Cooperation (SIDA); the United States Agency for International Development (USAID); the InterAmerican Development Bank (IADB) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) on several occasions. His contracts included research on political attitudes, institutions and policy analysis and design, quality of democracy as well as technical support for UNDP national human report teams.

2001-2004 he formed part of UNDP’s team in charge of the 2004 Report on Democracy in Latin America (responsible for survey analysis).

He has served in various public management assignments as well as in bodies responsible for evaluating public policies (latest assignment):

He is also a weekly columnist for Costa Rica’s leading daily newspaper “La Nación”.