The Order of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR of April 9th 1968 under authority of the Enactment of the Government of the USSR of February 21st 1968 marked the beginning of the creation of the Scientific Council on Synthetic Materials attached to the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR; the newly formed organization was headed by Academician K.A. Andrianov (1904-1978). These resolutions suggested the building of laboratories, which would occupy a total floor space of up to 3000 sq.m, to assure the working conditions of the Council. Starting from 1972, the charge of its recently formed section on Highly Durable Materials was taken by N.S. Enikolopov, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. He became the leading scientist in this area, having been appointed the vice-chairman of the Council at the same time to become head of the Council in 1978.

The construction of the laboratories was given a start in 1977, and in 1980 there began the organization of the Institute as a foundation of the Academy of Sciences. The Enactment of the Government of the USSR of September 4th 1980 and the Order of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR of March 5th 1981 specified the principal directions of the scientific activity of the Institute. The order by the Presidium of the Academy of Science vested Academician N.S Enikolopov, at that time head of the Scientific Council on Synthetic Materials, with a function of the leader of the Institute. During the period 1978–1986, Academician N.S. Enikolopov made the crucial efforts for the step-by-step promotion of the construction of the laboratory and administrative buildings of today’s Institute to the final stage, practically managing it as the leading scientist of the scientific groups working at the Institute of Chemical Physics, Institute of Organoelement Compounds, and State Research Institute of the Chemical Technologies of Organoelement Compounds. During that very period of his leadership, there started to form the departments of the Institute, which were joined by the graduates of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Moscow State University, Moscow Institute of Chemical Technology etc., who became full-time members of the scientific groups as early as 1981. In March 1985, Academician N.S. Enikolopov was officially appointed director of the Institute, and by the end of 1986, the research workers came to occupy the newly-built facilities.

Since that time, the main directions of the scientific activity of the Institute of Synthetic Polymeric Materials have suffered certain amendments and additions and have been given further development; however, retaining their actuality, they have essentially remained as formulated under Academician Enikolopov’s leadership. Among them are high-efficiency mechano-chemical solid-state syntheses and methods of the modifying of polymeric materials, original approaches and methods of the synthesis of multifunctional polymeric composites, application of the principle of elastically deformational grinding during the secondary processing of polymeric materials, and a number of others.

After the death of Academician N.S.Enokolopov in January 1993, the Institute was headed by Academician N.F. Bakeyev. According to Order no.235 of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences of June 16th 1998, the Institute of Synthetic Polymeric materials,a foundation of the Russian Academy of Sciences, was named after Academician N.S.Enikolopov. Starting from June 2002, it has been headed by A.N.Ozerin, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. From 2018 Director of ISPM is Prof. Sergey Ponomarenko.