UNU-CS succeeds the United Nations University International Institute for Software Technology (UNU-IIST), which was created by the United Nations University in Macau in 1991 following the agreement between the UN, the governments of Macau, Portugal, and China. After the Transfer of sovereignty over Macau, UNU-IIST lost some level of visibility. In 2015, the UNU-CS director Professor Michael L. Best was in charge of building the new succeeding institute "from scratch".