The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research was established in its present form by NLC Decree 293 of October 10, 1968 and re-established by CSIR Act 1996 (Act 521) on November 26, 1996. However, the Council traces its ancestry to the erstwhile National Research Council NRC) which was established by Government of Ghana in August 1958 to organize and co-ordinate scientific research in Ghana. 

In 1963, the NRC was merged with the former Ghana Academy of Sciences, a statutory learned society.  Following a review in 1966, the Academy was reconstituted into, essentially, its original component bodies, a national research organization redesignated the CSIR and a learned society, the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences.