The Institute’s beginnings date back to June 1921 when the Sea Fisheries Laboratory was established in Hel for the purpose of conducting research in hydrology and marine biology. This institution was closed in 1931 and then reopened in 1932 as the Marine Station. It was moved to its new headquarters, the present building of the NMFRI Gdynia Aquarium, in Gdynia at the end of 1938. After the Second World War, the Marine Station in Gdynia was reactivated under its original name of the Sea Fisheries Laboratory. In 1947, the SFL was incorporated into the Sea Fisheries Institute, which had been in operation since 1928. Beginning in 1949, the SFI was a departmental institution supervised by the Ministry of Navigation. Until 1991 it operated from its headquarters at the end of the South Pier in Gdynia when it moved to its new location on ul. Kołłątaja. Since 2000, the Sea Fisheries Institute has been supervised by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD). According to the Regulation of the Council of Ministers of June 2011, the Institute has been awarded National Research Institute (NRI) status. Upon attaining the status of NRI, the National Marine Fisheries Research Institute has joined the elite ranks of Polish national research institutes.
