Following the devastating 1990 Guilan and Zanjan earthquake, the Technical Capacity Mobilization Office of Iran was established to oversee reconstruction in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and UN-Habitat, under the supervision of the Housing Foundation of the Islamic Revolution. After the World Bank loan ended and a new statute was approved in 1993, the Centre for Natural Disasters Mitigation Studies was established and operated until 1998.
In 1998, the Centre was renamed the Natural Disasters Research and Study Centre. In response to the growing national need for disaster research, its statute was revised in 2003. With approval from the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology and the Higher Education Development Council, the Centre became the Natural Disasters Research Institute, with two main goals:

- Developing and promoting research on natural disasters.

- Providing a supportive environment for related research activities.

Today, the Institute has six research groups: Crisis Management, Environmental Hazards and Meteorological Disasters, Structural Retrofitting and Reconstruction, Hydrological Hazards, Geological Hazards, and Post-disaster Reconstruction and Rehabilitation.