The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) was a government science agency in New Zealand, founded in 1926 and broken into Crown Research Institutes in 1992.

DSIR was founded in 1926 by Ernest Marsden[1] after calls from Ernest Rutherford for government to support education and research[2] and on the back of the Imperial Economic Conference in London in October and November 1923, when various colonies discussed setting up such departments.

[3] It initially received funding from sources such as the Empire Marketing Board.

[4] The initial plans also included a new agricultural college, to be jointly founded by Auckland and Victoria University Colleges, Palmerston North was chosen as the site for this and it grew to become Massey University.

[9] The following is a list of Directors-General (Chief Executive) of DSIR:[10] Reconstituted into initially 10 semi-independent entities called Crown Research Institutes by the Crown Research Institutes Act 1992, with some further consolidation since.