Since the institute was founded in 1965, it has focused on exploring the big questions of modern Chinese history through the study of historical documents. The institute's researchers are known as the "Nankang school" (named for the institute's Taipei neighborhood), and Lin is a representative figure of a statistically oriented group of scholars among them.
該所自 1965 年創立以來，就以歷史檔案研究為基礎，探討中國近代史上的重大問題，世稱「南港學派」，林滿紅即為其中統計學派的代表人物。