Late Dr. S. Husain Zaheer played a great role in the Freedom struggle and was a close associate of Pandit Nehru. He was appointed as Director General of CSIR 1961-66. He had a long association with the science system in the country in various capacities and contributed substantially and significantly to the growth of scientific and industrial research in India. He is remembered by the scientific community for five year performance assessment scheme (flexible complementing scheme) to provide incentive to scientists for creative activities, and abolition of hierarchy among scientists.

Dr. Zaheer felt that the types of Conferences held in 1963, 1967 and 1970 as mentioned above should be continued to consider various issues of development of the country and for this purpose an independent organization might be set up which could make useful recommendations to the Government some of which might be accepted by the Government and would help in the promotion of socio-economic development of the country on the basis of science and technology keeping in view the latest global trends in knowledge based areas.  The inspiration for starting the Foundation came from the perception that there was a gap in the area of interaction between science and society and the Foundation could greatly help in promoting scientific attitude and temper.