The Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South (COMSATS) is an international organization. It aims to reduce the ever-growing gap between the developed and developing world through useful applications of science and technology. The Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) initiated the proposal for the formation of COMSATS under the leadership of Nobel Laureate, Dr. Abdus Salam.
The CIIT was established in 1998, as a project of the Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South (COMSATS), which is an inter-governmental organization with 27 member states in three continents; Asia, Africa and Latin America, namely Bangladesh, China, Colombia, Egypt, Ghana, Gambia, Iran, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Korea (DPRK), Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, State of Palestine, Philippines, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Tanzania, Turkey, Tunisia, Uganda and Zimbabwe