Promoting scientific and applied research, particularly in matters related to industry, natural and food resources and other primary constituents of national economy, in an endeavor to serve the goals of economic, technological and scientific development, and to advise the government on scientific matters and on scientific policy issues.

The main objectives of the institute as declared in the Amiri Decree are to:

• Conduct scientific research and studies concerned with the progress of national industry and which facilitate the preservation of the environment;
  
• Encourage Kuwait to practice scientific research and nourish the spirit of research in the younger generation;
  
• Explore and study natural resources and means for exploiting them, energy and water resources, and methods to improve agriculture and develop aquatic resources;
  
• Render scientific, technological and research consultation services to the government and to national establishment;
  
• Follow up the development of scientific and technological progress, and adapt it in ways that conform with the local environment;
  
• Establish and foster relations, and carry out mutual research with higher education institutes, and the technological and scientific sectors in Kuwait and various parts of the world; and
• Participate in the study of ways to verify the resources of the national economy by investing the results, of scientific and technological research in industry and directing it in the services of the State’s economic and social development goals.