The CSW was established in 1981 through a project (UD/KUN/CSW) jointly run by the Catholic University Nijmegen, The Netherlands and the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania with a purpose of supporting teaching, research and consultancy activities of the then Faculty of Science (currently CoNAS).The objectives for the establishment of the science workshop were: to centralize the small carpentry workshops that existed in the departments, to expand the then existing mechanical workshop, to assist the teaching departments with fabrication, repair and service of teaching and research facilities. The other objective was to offer technical services to other units of the University of Dar es Salaam and the public on consultancy basis.

Initially the CSW was comprised of two main sections namely mechanics and electronics. The mechanics section had four sub sections; general mechanics, fine mechanics, carpentry and glass blowing whereas the electronics section had three subsections; design, development and repair.

However, after it’s restructuring in 2002, the CSW remained with two sub sections namely the General Mechanics and Fine Mechanics. The performance of the workshop after the 2002 restructuring wasobserved to deteriorate leading to its struggling to realise its core functions. This lead to the need for the new restructuring of the workshop in 2019.

After the 2019 restructuring, the workshop now has four sections: General Mechanics, Fine Mechanics, Electronics and Glass Blowing. There are also plans to establish the Cooling Systems Section and the Designing Section. These changes have helped the CSW to improve its performance.