The Tyumen region is the main fuel and energy supplier in Russia and a major exporter of oil and gas. Development of oil and gas resources progressed very rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s, sometimes without proper scientific support, which adversely affected the environment and the mining fields. As a result, nowadays the region is suffering large-scale environmental stress and is facing an intricate complex of the related ecological, economical and socio-ethnical problems. These problems became the main subject of studies for the Tyumen Science Centre, founded in 1990.

The scientists from the Institute of the Earth Cryosphere investigate dynamics of the cryosphere and particular features of industrial development in the conditions of broadly distributed permafrost. At the Institute of the North Development, research is focused on economic and human aspects of active industrial interference in the territory inhabited by northern peoples.

The Tyumen department of the Institute of Petroleum Geology studies distribution regularities of hydrocarbon deposits in the Tyumen region and problems of their development. The Tyumen Department of the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics investigates problems of mechanics of multi-phase systems in application to prospecting, extraction and transportation of hydrocarbon raws.

At the Presidium of the Centre, there is the Department of Law of Economic Relations in Oil and Gas Complex dealing in particular with land management issues and relations between oil and gas companies and national districts within the region.

The Tyumen Centre of the SB RAS collaborates with specialised science institutions, with the Tyumen University and other higher schools; a number of studies are performed on the order of the regional administration. The institutes are actively involved in international projects related to problems of northern territories.