Brief History & Basic Texts
The UIS was established in 1999 by the decision of the 30th session of the UNESCO General Conference. It was created to improve UNESCO’s statistical programme and to develop and deliver the timely, accurate and policy-relevant statistics needed within the increasingly complex and rapidly changing social, political and economic environments.
In May 2000, the 159th session of the UNESCO Executive Board decided that the UIS should be located in Montreal, Canada. The UIS opened on the campus of Université de Montréal in the fall of 2001 and moved to its current location in summer 2022.
As one of UNESCO’s category 1 institutes, the UIS benefits from a large degree of intellectual and functional autonomy. This allows it to adapt quickly to emerging needs and to innovate in areas that support countries and regional and global organizations to monitor progress and target policies towards their development goals, especially in the field of education.