MagadanNIRO is a sectoral fisheries institute that conducts studies of aquatic biological resources (FBG), mainly in the North Okhotsk Sea coast and in the Sea of ??Okhotsk Sea north of 54º N. Since its inception in 1959, the institute existed as a regional branch of the TINRO-MOTINRO Institute, which in October 1999 was transformed into the state unitary enterprise “Magadan Branch of the Pacific Fisheries Research Center”, and in October 2001 was reorganized into an independent Institute - FSUE "MagadanNIRO". The creation of a department and its subsequent transformation into an institute was justified by the need to solve a number of theoretical, scientific and practical issues related to the rational use of the aquatic biological resources by the fishing industry.
The energy and organizational skills of the first director, Maria Nikiforovna Gracheva, contributed to the rapid establishment of the department. In 1965, Vasily Leonidovich Kosarev replaced her in this post, who led the department for more than 30 years (until 1997). Next, from the end of the 1990s, the institute was headed by Nikolay Afanasyev (1997-2000), Vladimir Vasilievich Volobuev (2000-2001), Alexander Yuryevich Rogatnykh (2001-2003), Valery Ivanovich Mikhailov (2003-2010), Marchenko Sergey Leonidovich (2010 -2015). Since 2015, the institute is headed by Victor Ovchinnikov.