The Institute of Scientific Research (IIP) was born in 1949 within the Marine Biology Section (SBM), administratively linked to the Institute of Applied Biology of the University of Barcelona, and financially to the Juan de la Cierva Patronato (CSIC, Madrid). In 1951, the Governing Board of the CSIC (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas) agreed that the SBM should become an Institute under the name of the Institute for the Research Centre for the Bureau of Pesqueras. The official inauguration of the Vigo laboratory was on September 23, 1952, although this laboratory had been operating since the beginning of 1951. Cadiz joined two years later.

In this way, the IIP grew and, in 1979, the independence and autonomy of the laboratories and management bodies of each of the new institutes, which were given different names, were established: Instituto de Ciencias Marinas de Andalucía (ICMAN) (Cadiz), Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas (IIM) (Vigo) and Instituto de Acuicultura de Torre de la Sal (IATS) (Castellón).