Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) is a multi-campus community-engaged public university established in 1936 as Sir. Dorabjee Tata Graduate School of Social works in Mumbai, which aimed to create human service professionals to address the issues of unemployment and poverty.

It was renamed as Tata Institute of Social Sciences in 1944. In 1964, the Government of India declared TISS as a Deemed to be University under Section 3, of the University Grants Commission Act of 1956. It was then, graded as a category 1 Deemed to be University in the year 2018 as per the UGC regulations in 2018. TISS has four campuses in Mumbai, Tuljapur, Hyderabad, and Guwahati.

The vision of the TISS university is to be an institute of excellence in higher education that continually responds to changing social realities through the development and application of knowledge towards creating a people-centered, ecologically sustainable, and just society that promotes and protects the dignity, equality, social justice, and human rights for all.