[citation needed] In June 2001, Kōji Omi, former Minister of State for Okinawa and Northern Territories Affairs and former Minister of State for Science and Technology Policy, announced plans to establish a new graduate university in Okinawa.

A Board of Governors was appointed in 2004 and the following year, the Diet recognized OIST as an "Independent Administrative Institution".

[6] Students are recruited through much higher levels of competition than that of the entrance examination for graduate schools of top national universities in Japan.

[10][7] According to a 2015 report, completed by an external peer review panel,[11] OIST is on a par with the 25 universities ranked highest by Times Higher Education, QS or Jiaotong World University Rankings in terms of physical campus infrastructure, management structure and management processes, academic program and recruitment of faculty, graduate program, instrumentation, course to research outcome, technology transfer and welfare, social, and cultural support programs.

[13] This article on an Okinawa Prefecture institute of higher education or related topic is a stub.