The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Rijeka started out as a higher education institution called the Higher Vocational School of Pedagogy (1953), which went on to include the Academies of Pedagogy in Rijeka (1960), Pula (1961) and Gospić (1963). Later, the Higher Vocational School of Pedagogy became the Higher School of Industrial Pedagogy (1962) and after this the Faculty of Industrial Pedagogy (1972). In 1977, the Faculty of Pedagogy was founded after the merger of the four teaching institutions (Faculty of Industrial Pedagogy and Academies of Pedagogy in Rijeka, Pula and Gospić). As well as offering study programmes in the fields of humanities and social sciences, the faculty also inherited study programmes from its former components: physics, mathematics, polytechnics, practical teaching, classroom teaching, pre-school education and art education.
In 1998, the institution was renamed the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Rijeka (February 27, 1998) when qualitative shifts in higher education were made, and the number of undergraduate study programmes increased. This was also the time when postgraduate study programmes were being developed in the fields of social sciences and humanities. Later, the pre-school and primary school teaching programmes were no longer a part of the faculty and became the Higher Teacher Training School (1998). The Department for Art Education also became the Academy of Applied Arts, and in 2007/2008 the Departments of Mathematics, Physics and Information Sciences also became separate departments. This was when the University Senate adopted a decision to establish the University Departments of Mathematics, Physics and Information Sciences as separate organisational units of the University of Rijeka.
As a result of this process, the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences became the main institution at the University where students are educated in the humanities and social sciences, without which the existence of a modern university is inconceivable.
In the academic year 2010/2011, the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences moved to new premises at the University Campus on Trsat. Before this, the faculty had been working in three locations (Omladinska 14, Trg Ivana Klobučarića 1 and Slavka Krautzeka bb). The move to one location has resolved many of the long-term logistical problems that the faculty previously faced. Teaching in the new building at the University Campus began on January 10th, 2011.
In the academic year 2005/2006, the faculty started offering new undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate study programmes, organised according to the principles of the Bologna Declaration (the introduction of three cycles of study based on the ECTS credit point system). Today all study programmes are carried out according to these principles.