Affiliated with the General Administration of Quality Supervision and Inspection and Quarantine of the People's Republic of China (AQSIQ), China National Institute of Standardization (CNIS) is a non-profit national research body engaging in standardization research. The main responsibilities of CNIS are to conduct all-round, strategic, and comprehensive research of standardization during the development process of economy and society, to research and develop comprehensive fundamental standards, as well as to provide authoritative standards information services. CNIS is poised to provide all-round support in standardization for China's economic development and social progress, to support technical progress, industrial upgrading, and product's quality improvement, and to provide scientific evidence for government policy-making on standardization.

Since its founding in 1990, CNIS has undertaken many national key scientific and research projects. Among them, three important projects of the 10th Five-Year Plan (2000-2005) Key Science and Technology Special Program, namely, Research on Development Strategies for Chinese Technical Standards, Research on Development of China's National Technical Standards System, and Basic Research on and Technological Measures for the Safety Standards of Main Foods, have played important supportive roles for promotion of national standardization. One of our projects, Development of a National Terminology and Graphic Symbol System, has been awarded the State-level Second Prize for Advancement of Science and Technology, the highest prize so far in the field of scientific research on standardization. In addition, many of our projects have been awarded state-level and ministry-level prizes for advancement of science and technology and prizes for key scientific research achievements of the 8th (1990-1995), and 9th (1995-2000) Five-Year Plan periods. Our research has brought about significant influence home and abroad, and has made outstanding contributions to development of China's economic development and the progress of science and technology.