TISS began in 1936 as the Sir Dorabji Tata Graduate School of Social Work, the first professional school of social work in Asia. It was renamed the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in 1944 in recognition of its widening academic scope, and became a Deemed University under the UGC Act in 1964.
Over nine decades, TISS has grown from a single campus in Mumbai into a multi-campus national university with centres in Tuljapur, Hyderabad and Guwahati.
Its history is told through "85 Years of TISS" and the TISStory archive of photographs, documents, films and oral histories, which record generations of human-service professionals trained at the institute, its influence on social policy and research, and its pioneering field action projects across India.