Established on 31 May 2006 as a special organ for the restoration and preservation of national memory of the Ukrainian people.

On 9 December 2010, the UINR was discontinued by a decree issued by Viktor Yanukovych and on the same day the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine created the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance as a research institution instead, within the budget from the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

According to historian Georgiy Kasianov, the Institute of National Memory from 2015 was under control of Ukrainian nationalist forces, specifically Center for Research of the Liberation Movement.

These forces, which were not popular in Ukraine and which never managed well in the national elections, suddenly received a significant instrument to influence Ukrainian education and politics.

The criminal sentences imposed by these acts and their phrasing came in for criticism within the country and abroad.