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The UNL Programme was launched in 1996 in the Institute of Advanced Studies of UNU. From the very beginning, a global-scale network of R&D teams, involving specialists in computer science and linguistics, have been at work creating the linguistic resources and developing the software of the UNL System. Under the direction of the UNL Center, university departments and research institutes around the world have been establishing UNL language centers for the development of respective native languages.

In ten years of work, the UNL Programme has already crossed important milestones. The overall structure of the UNL system has been developed with a set of basic software and tools necessary for the development and functioning of the UNL. A vast amount of linguistic resources of the UNL as well as of the various native languages has been accumulated in the last few years. Moreover, the technical infrastructure for expanding these resources is already in place, thus facilitating the participation of many more languages in the UNL system form now on.

In January 2001, the United Nations University set up an autonomous organization, the UNDL Foundation, to be responsible for the development and management of the UNL Programme. The UNDL Foundation, a non-profit international organization, inherited from the IAS/UNU the mandate of implementing the UNL Programme and of bringing it to fulfill its mission.

The UNL Programme remains a long-term endeavor, and invites a broad participation of people from all languages. The UNL system is designed composed of various functional modules. People can join the development of any of these modules in either style in teams or individually. A basic set of software and tools (UNL Development Set) necessary for developing language modules is available to the UNL Society members.