This research institute was established on November 21, 1990 as a research institute affiliated with College of Natural Sciences, and was legalized as Institute of Microbiology affiliated with Seoul National University’s College of Natural Sciences on March 1, 1997. Tracing its roots in Department of Microbiology at College of Natural Sciences, the nation's first institute for education of and research on microbiology, and Research Center of Molecular Microbiology, an excellent research center, the research institute has been conducting joint research by encompassing leading local researchers who have been engaged in this field and aims to accumulate new knowledge in leading the tide of global research. In addition to research on basic microbiology and applied microbiology, the research institute also conducts research on the collection, separation, storage, and classification of microorganisms.

It was established in June 2013 to carry out interdisciplinary basic and applied research as well as various industry-university convergence projects, and is promoting international cooperation in academics and personnel as well as various academic activities with the goal of becoming one of the world’s best applied research institute. Professors and researchers from various majors such as physics, chemistry, and engineering are participating, and there are 50 processing equipments in shared laboratories such as the clean room, low temperature room, sample preparation room, and bio room.

It is widely acknowledged that the theoretical physics group in Department of Physics and Astronomy at Seoul National University has been leading local theoretical physics research and fostering younger generations since the early 1980s. As a result of such efforts, the quality of research on theoretical physics has reached near the international level. In this process, the need for creating a research institute naturally emerged to efficiently support the research activities of professors of theoretical physics at Seoul National University, various symposiums and regular seminars, and projects of inviting renowned physicists from abroad. Then, in 1989, as the National Research Foundation started the Science Research Center (SRC) project as part of the government's plan to foster basic science, Center for Theoretical Physics (CTP) was founded in 1990 with the theoretical physics group at Seoul National University at the center. As Korea's representative theoretical physics research institute and representative theoretical physics research institute for the past 20 years, the research institute has not only performed cutting-edge research in this field, but has played a role as a cradle for nurturing a large number of excellent young talents.