The cost of construction and administration formalities is in the region of €130 million, and to make sure they are managed and implemented efficiently a public sector company, ‘Gran Telescopio CANARIAS, S.A.’ (GRANTECAN) was set up specifically to build the GTC in 1994. Partners in the company are the Canarian Regional Government and the Spanish Government (Ministry of Education and Science).
International participants are currently Mexico's National Institute for Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics(Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica, INAOE), and the Institute of Astronomy of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Instituto de Astronomía de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, IA-UNAM), both funded by that country’s National Council of Science and Technology (Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología de México, CONACYT), to contribute 5% of the project’s construction, running and start-up costs. The University of Florida Research Foundation is contributing the same amount.The above-named Mexican institutions and the University of Florida are also developing some of the telescope’s instruments.
Thanks to the GTC, Spain is at the head of one of the world’s biggest science and technology initiatives in the field of astronomy.