The Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India, New Delhi established the Population Research Centre (PRC), Shimla in 1988 at Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla and started functioning during 1989. The PRC Shimla has been classified as “Type-II PRC” as per revised guidelines issued by the Ministry during March 2012 with the mandate and objectives mentioned below:

• To provide, inter alia, critical research based inputs related to the Health and Family Welfare Programme and Policies at the national and state levels;
• To carry out research and evaluation studies in the field of population studies and to undertaken evaluation of the state level population and health programme and schemes, as entrusted by the Ministry from time to time;
• To contribute towards the growth of population research (including monitoring and evaluation) in the overall context of socio-economic research in the country or parts thereof besides regularly undertaking seminars, conferences, workshops, training programmes etc 

In addition to the routine functions, the population Research Centre Shimla is also time to time monitors different research projects sponsored by State/Central Government and its agencies