In July 1980, during the 14th Convocation of Academicians of Academia Sinica, a group of twenty-one academicians, including Academicians Yuan-Shih Chow, George C. Tiao and Ching Chun Li, drafted a resolution calling for the establishment of the Institute of Statistics. On July 1, 1982, the Preparatory Office was founded with Dr. Min-Te Chao as the Director. Five years later, the Institute of Statistical Science was formally founded on August 3, 1987 and Dr. Chao was the Founding Director from 1987 to 1993. The successive Directors were Dr. Ching-Zong Wei (August 1993-August 1999), Dr. Chen-Hsin Chen (August 1999- December 2002), Dr. Ching-Shui Cheng (January 2003-December 2005), Dr. Gwo Dong Lin (Acting Director, January - June 2006), Dr. Ker-Chau Li (July 2006 - July 2012), and Dr. Chen-Hsin Chen (Acting Director, July 2012 - July 2013), Dr. Ching-Shui Cheng (July 2013 - June 2016), and Dr. Jeng-Min Chiou (Acting Director, July 2016 - July 2017), and Dr. Chun-houh Chen (Director, July 2017 - July 2023). Dr. Hsin-Chou Yang is the Director since July 2023.

The Institute of Statistical Science conducts fundamental and applied research related to statistics and probability. The Institute respects independent research of individual principal investigators, encourages team work of research groups, and promotes multidisciplinary collaborations and cross-institution research projects. The Institute currently has 34 research fellows, 29 postdoctoral fellows, 47 research assistants, and approximately 24 supporting staff members in administration and computing. Major research areas include probability and its applications, mathematical statistics, biomedical statistics, bioinformatics, systems biology and statistical genetics, functional brain images, educational and behavioral statistics, mathematical finance, time series, spatial and environmental statistics, experimental design, statistical machine learning, statistical graphics and information visualization and social networks.

Research fellows in the Institute have published research work in reputed international journals and books and are actively involved in the organization and participation of international conferences. In the past 3 years, researchers of the institute have published 202 articles in SCI journals 200 and other articles and monographs. The international journal Statistica Sinica published by the institute has won the Outstanding Journal Award conferred by NSC for 8 successive years and has become one of the major statistical journals in the world.