Founded in 1992 and housed at The City College of New York, the Dominican Studies Institute of the City University of New York (CUNY DSI) is the nation's first university-based research institute devoted to the study of people of Dominican descent in the United States and other parts of the world. CUNY DSI's mission is to produce and disseminate research and scholarship about Dominicans, and about the Dominican Republic. CUNY DSI is the locus for a community of scholars, including doctoral fellows, in the field of Dominican Studies and sponsors multidisciplinary research projects.

The Institute houses the Dominican Archives and the Dominican Library, the first and only institutions in the United States collecting primary and secondary source material about people of Dominican descent. In 2010, the Institute opened its Archives and Library facility to art exhibitions, thus becoming the first exhibit space in New York City devoted exclusively to work by and about people of Dominican descent. The Institute organizes lectures, conferences, and exhibitions that are open to the public.