By resolution of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR of September 24, 1953, the Department of Foreign Languages was established under the postgraduate department of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR. Subsequently, by order of the Academy of Sciences of the Byelorussian SSR of August 6, 1954, the Department of Philosophy was created. On March 17, 1992, the Department of the Belarusian Language was formed. Until September 1998, the above-mentioned departments were organizationally subordinate to the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of Belarus and were part of the Training Center existing under it. In September 1998, the Training Center was abolished, and only the Department of Foreign Languages remained under the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. The Department of Philosophy became part of the Institute of Philosophy, and the Department of the Belarusian Language became part of the Institute of Linguistics of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. All three departments subsequently became the main educational subdivisions of the “Institute for the Training of Scientific Personnel,” formed in accordance with the order of the Head of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus dated December 5, 2001.

The Department of Social and Humanitarian Disciplines was established on September 19, 2013, as a result of the merger of the Departments of Philosophy, Belarusian Language, and Foreign Languages.

Since its foundation, the Head of the Department has been Ostreiko Vera Dmitrievna, Candidate of Philological Sciences.

Over the years, the department has been staffed by Professors Osipov Alexei Ivanovich (Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, Professor), Vikulova Svetlana Vitoldovna (Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor), Senior Lecturers Alekseichik Tatyana Alexandrovna, Bartkevich Olga Alexandrovna, Loginova Kira Viktorovna, Shopot Alesya Nikolaevna, and Leading Specialists for Educational Process Support Vasilevskaya Olga Ivanovna and Moroz Natalya Viktorovna. Currently, the department’s teaching staff includes Associate Professors Alekseeva Ekaterina Aleksandrovna (Candidate of Philosophical Sciences, Associate Professor), Egorova Natalya Anatolyevna (Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences, Associate Professor), Senior Lecturers Veremenkova Elena Fedorovna, and Lecturer Gusakova Anna Alexandrovna. The support staff is represented by the Leading Specialist for Educational Process Support Ratkevich Maria Vasilievna.

Initially, the department was responsible for the Master’s specialities “Art History,” “Sociology,” “Philosophy,” and “Economics.” In the 2018-2019 academic year, Master’s training in the speciality “Archaeology” was launched. Since September 2023, the department has been organizing the educational process for Master’s students in the specialities “Archaeology,” “Art History,” “Sociology,” and “Philosophy.” In 2021, within the framework of the advanced higher education speciality “Art History,” specialisations “Musical Art” and “Fine Arts and Design” were introduced, aimed at training foreign citizens in English and Russian.

One of the important areas of the department’s work has been and remains the preparation of students for taking candidate examinations in the general education disciplines “Philosophy and Methodology of Science” and “Foreign Language (English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Russian as a Foreign Language, Belarusian as a Foreign Language),” as well as ensuring the conditions for Master’s students of the university to master the content of general education disciplines within the module “Pedagogical and Scientific Activity.”

In September 2013, the department launched the training of highly qualified scientific personnel in the postgraduate speciality 09.00.01 Ontology and Theory of Knowledge.

Between 2013 and 2020, the department organized the educational process within the framework of training courses in English (including for young scientists of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus) and preparatory and training courses in Russian as a Foreign Language.