ABSTRACT Institutional Research (IR) is an emerging profession in the context of Asian Higher Education. Consequently, understanding of the pathways leading to the development of IR professionals’ identities, crucial for IR capacity building, is limited. The study aims to investigate the contextual and psychological antecedents necessary to attain high levels of professional identity for institutional researchers in Taiwan’s higher education. Using the convenience-sampling, this study recruited IR professionals to participate in the online survey during the spring semester of 2022. A total of 84 participants responded with experience working in a university’s IR office, and multivariate analysis techniques adopted include descriptive statistics, factor analysis, reliability analysis, and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). Results indicate that high levels of both structural and psychological empowerment (PE) are necessary conditions for cultivating strong professional identities. For IR professionals working in public comprehensive or technical universities, particularly in high levels of PE led to strong professional identities. Conversely, those working in private comprehensive or technical universities were able to attain high levels of professional identity despite low levels of structural and PE. Policy implications are also discussed.