The history of FORTH is directly related with a distinct group of five Greek scientists from abroad, namely Fotis Kafatos, , Grigoris Sifakis and Peter Lambropoulos, who planned the idea and with the help of the Minister of Research and Technology Prof. Georgios Lianis, convinced the Greek Government to create in 1983 the Research Center of Crete in Heraklion and its first three Institutes: the Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser, the Institute of Molecular Biology & Biotechnology and the Institute of Computer Science. Having Prof. Economou as its first Director General, RCC rapidly expanded with an in Rethymon and in Heraklion. In 1986 Skinakas Observatory, jointly supported by RCC, the University of Crete and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics also commenced its operations. In 1987 with the agreement of Prof. George Papatheodorou and Prof. Iacovos Vasalos who were respectively the Directors of the in Patras and the Chemical ProcessEngineering Research Institute in Thessaloniki, the two institutes joined RCC thus creating FORTH. In 2002 the Biomedical Research Institute, based in Ioannina is incorporated into FORTH. In parallel, with financial support from the European Union, the construction of the FORTH buildings in Heraklion, Patras, Thessaloniki, and the restoration of the IMS building in Rethymno began. With the initiative and cooperation of FORTH with the General Secretariat for Research and Technology, Science and Technology Parks were established connected to the Institutes in Heraklion, Patras, and Thessaloniki and respective buildings with European funding were erected. The main FORTH building infrastructure in Heraklion in 2004 had an area of 30,000 square meters. Most of the buildings were designed and supervised by Panos Koulermos, then a professor of architecture at the University of Southern California. In 2018, the Institute of Astrophysics and the Institute of Petroleum Research were also founded as part of FORTH. Over the years, FORTH has been established as the premier research organisation in Greece, ranking consistently first in scientific quality and international recognition by a variety of metrics, including evaluations by external Committees as well as attracting funding by European Research Council grants.
Institutes
FORTH currently consists of the following research institutes:
From 1987 to 2000, the Chemical Process Engineering Research Institute based in Thessaloniki was also part of FORTH. In 2000, CPERI was separated from FORTH to become a founding member of a new research center, the National Centre for Research and Technology-Hellas.
Directors
The position of the Director of FORTH and Chairperson of the Governing Council was held by the following individuals:
