The Chinese Society for Microbiology (CSM), founded in 1952, is a national non-profit, legal academic organization of the Chinese scientists specializing in microbiology. Since 1980, CSM has become a member of International Union of Microbiological Societies (IUMS). CSM currently consists of 6 working committees and 22 professional committees and more than 20,000 members in China. CSM is affiliated to China Association of Science and Technology (CAST), and also accepts administrative supervision from Ministry of Civil Affairs. The highest authority of CSM is the Representative Congress, which is usually held in every five years. The Representative Congress is authorized to select the Council, that elects the President, Vice Presidents, Secretary General and General Council of CSM. The current Council of CSM is the twelfth，which was elected in October 2021, with Xu Jianguo as the President and Xiang Hua as the Secretary General. The Council consists of 154 members, in which 42 are executive directors.

The main task of CSM is to organize academic exchange among CSM members, promoting international collaborations on microbiological research and technology so as to drive the microbiological development.

22 professional committees cover a wide range of specialties, including General Microbiology, Industrial Microbiology, Agricultural Microbiology, Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Veterinary Microbiology, Aetiology of Zoonoses, Mycology, Virology, Biologics, Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, Analytical Microbiology, Model and Control of Biochemical Process, Enzyme Engineering, Environmental Microbiology, Interferon, Brewing Division, Microbial Toxins, Microbial Resources, Clinical Microbiology, Microbial Biosecurity and Geomicrobiology. CSM also has six working committees responsible for organization work, international exchange, microbiology education, technology consultation, journal publishing and science popularization.

Popularizing scientific and technological knowledge of microbiology, disseminating scientific thoughts and methods, boosting biotechnology is also the important work of CSM. Up to 2017, CSM has built the Chinese Science and Technology Museum on Agricultural Microbiology in Beijing. During the past five years, 237 popular science lectures were held in Beijing, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Qinghai, Henan, Xinjiang, Shandong, Guizhou and Inner Mongolia provinces for more than 70600 students from primary, secondary and high schools and the community public.

CSM edits and publishes 8 academic journals, which are Chinese Journal of Virology, Chinese Journal of Zoonoses, Acta Microbiologica Sinica, Microbiology China, Chinese Journal of Biotechnology, Virologica Sinica, Journal of Microbiology and mLife. 6 of them were funded by The Implementation and Achievements Project for High Quality for Scientific journals by CAST. Virologica Sinica has become the SCI indexed journal since May 2015. The SCI impact factor of Virologica Sinica is 4.327.