Abstract:The paper reviewed the existed research on the governance of U.S. Federal research institutes from three aspects: the overall governance, the governance of special problems, and the governance of different types of institutes. We found that the research of Chinese scholars was insufficient in following aspects: the research did not reflect the new development trends of U.S. Federal research institutes; the characteristics of Private-Public Partnership in the governance of U.S. Federal research institutes were not fully explored; the research were fragmented and did not form a effective framework for analyzing the governance of U.S. Federal research institutes; it is not enough to carry out the comparing research with Chinese research institutes.