The Ministry of Science and Technology is the executive department of the Central Science and Technology Commission, which coordinates science and technology activities in the country. The office is located in Xicheng District, Beijing.

The ministry is responsible for formulating guidelines and related policies for science and technology in China development and promoting basic and special research on science and technology.

The predecessor of MOST was the National Technical Committee established at the 28th Plenary Session of the State Council in 1956. It merged with the Scientific Planning Commission to form the State Science and Technology Commission in 1958.

The commission was abolished in 1970, but was re-established in March 1978. The commission was renamed to the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China at the 9th National People's Congress in 1998.

In 2018, the Ministry of Science and Technology was approved for restructuring at the National People's Congress as part of the deepening the reform of the Party and state institutions. The most significant departmental adjustment was the merger of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) into the Ministry of Science and Technology. The NSFC is a semi-autonomous research funding agency that provided about $4.7 billion in funding to 120,000 research projects in 2017. In addition, the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs (SAFEA) was also merged into the Ministry of Science and Technology. The merger of this department reflected China's intention to invest more in global research cooperation.

In 2023, the Ministry was further reformed as part of the plan on reforming Party and state institutions, with several responsibilities transferred to other departments. The Ministry would no longer take part in evaluating and managing specific research projects, instead playing a mainly supervisory and guiding role, as well as overseeing the implementation of scientific research projects and evaluating their results. Additionally, several organizations under the Ministry were transferred to other departments; the SAFEA was transferred to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the China Rural Technology Development Center was transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the China Biotechnology Development Center was transferred to the National Health Commission, and the China Agenda 21 Management Center and the High Technology Research and Development Center were placed under the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

In December 2017, the Ministry of Science and Technology of China and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) reached an agreement with the goal of strengthening knowledge sharing, capacity building and cooperation in sustainable development among countries. In addition, Mr. Liu Zhenmin, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, said that DESA and MOST signed a memorandum of understanding to encourage developing countries to conduct joint research in the field of green technology.

In July 2019, TWAS Executive Director Romain Murenzi held talks with Wang Zhigang, Minister of MOST, to discuss issues such as jointly advancing scientific development in the global South. Murenzi said that the cooperative relationship between China and TWAS began 35 years ago at the beginning of TWAS establishment, and proposed to strengthen more scientific exchanges and cooperation with the Ministry of Science and Technology of China in the future.