In the past, a number of efforts were made to explore the possible benefits of a European organization supporting the development of high quality University information systems. Since the 1980s, some European universities´ CIOs used to attend the EDUCOM and CAUSE (now merged as EDUCAUSE) conferences in the USA.

Following an OECD study and seminar on “Impact of Information Technology on Higher Education” which gave the opportunity to managers of Information Systems to meet, in 1993, after a first meeting in Amsterdam – considering the value of a European organization – the actual founding meeting took place in Paris. It was attended by scholars from eight countries: Belgium (Bruno Paternostre), Denmark (Ole Carsten Pedersen), Finland (Kristel Sarlin, Pentti Korhonen), France (Yves Epelboin), Germany (Jan von Knop), Ireland (John Moriarty), the Netherlands (Chris Hendriks) and the United Kingdom (Mike Collin, John Heap, Robin McDonough). Three other scholars from Austria, Norway and Switzerland could not attend but supported the aims of the meeting. The meeting considered the potential benefits of interchanges across national boundaries, of a single European approach to the Information Technology suppliers, and also to the European Commission.

EUNIS, European University Information Systems, was born as the federation of national organizations of university directors of information technology. 

EUNIS remained an informal organization till October 1997. At first, the founders wanted to register EUNIS in Brussels as a European Association. But this was too early; the European laws were not yet ready. Anyway, Robin McDonough was nominated as the first chairman of EUNIS, and Yves Epelboin as the secretary.

In 1995, a EUNIS three-day conference was held in Düsseldorf, hosted by Jan von Knop at Heinrich Heine University. It was the first of the annual EUNIS main conferences, called later on EUNIS Congresses. These conferences usually take place at the end of June on a hosting university campus. This first attempt was immediately successful, with 200 delegates from 25 European countries. A number of issues regarding information technology were covered by the presentations.

In 1996 a second Congress was hosted by Robin McDonough at University of Manchester. EUNIS considered at this time that it could not organize a “big” conference each year, so this one was a “small” two-day one. Anyway, due to the success, this concept of “small” conferences alternately with a “big” one was abandoned after this one.

In 1997, the Congress was held on the Grenoble campus, organized by Jean-François Desnos and Yves Epelboin. Delegates from 31 countries were attending, among them Central and Eastern Europe countries, including Russia. Some speakers from the USA (EDUCAUSE, Gartner Group, several universities), and even from Australia were also present.

A first General Assembly of the attendees in Grenoble decided to register the association under the French law (as European statutes were not possible), to give EUNIS an official existence. This was officially recorded in October 1997, with an initial Board elected by the General Assembly:
Yves Epelboin, president; Kristel Sarlin, VP; Martin Price (United Kingdom), VP; Peter Mederly (Slovakia) secretary, Jean-François Desnos (France), treasurer. Three US colleagues were nominated honorary members to thank them for their contribution to EUNIS: John Bielec (Drexel University) as the US liaison, Richard Katz (Educause VP), and Michael Zastrocky (Gartner Group VP). Important links were set with these three key colleagues: a Board member became an invited scholar at Drexel, EUNIS members would pay a reduced fee at EDUCAUSE conferences, the Gartner Group would invite EUNIS members at big events.

Three more Congresses were held under the presidency of Yves Epelboin: in 1998 in Prague, hosted by Ivan Vrana (who had created a Eunis-Czech association),

in 1999 in Helsinki, hosted by Kristel Sarlin (Helsinki University of Technology)

and in 2000 in Poznan, hosted by Jan Weglarz (Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Centre and the Poznan University of Technology). In 2000, Ron Chisnall (United Kingdom) was nominated the Executive Secretary.

In 2001 the Congress was hosted by Peter Schirmbacher (Humboldt University Berlin). A new Board was made of: Jan von Knop (Germany), president, Ivan Vrana (Czech Republic), Jens Doerup (Denmark), Lígia Ribeiro (Portugal), Kristel Sarlin, Andrew Rothery (United Kingdom), Viljan Mahnic (Slovenia), and Jean-François Desnos. 

In 2001 also, Ivan Vrana and EUNIS published a Handbook on Software Engineering

But disagreements arose between the president and the majority of the Board. In January 2002, at a meeting in London Gartner offices hosted by Michael Zastrocky, the Board appointed Kristel Sarlin as the new president. She chaired EUNIS for the next three Congresses: in 2002 in Porto, hosted by Lígia Ribeiro (University of Porto),

2003 in Amsterdam, hosted by Marij Veugelers (University of Amsterdam) and 2004 in Bled, Slovenia, hosted by Viljan Mahnic (University of Ljubljana).

In 2003 a seminar for Rectors entitled “IS Strategy and Policy” was organized in Paris by EUNIS and the European association of Rectors – EUA (European University Association). Not less than fifty Rectors (plus a number of EUNIS representatives) attended this event. Cooperation with EUA was initialized at this occasion.

In Bled 2004 Lígia Ribeiro was elected as the new president. Martin Price became the executive secretary.

In 2004, an E-learning task force was created, lead by Andrew Rothery (University of Worchester). The first workshop was held in Oxford in February.

In 2005, an important agreement was signed with TERENA, expecting common projects, crossed presentations during the annual conferences and reduced fees at the events.

In 2005 the Congress was once again hosted at the University of Manchester, this time organized by Mark Clark, the new CIO. 

The 2005 General Assembly (GA) in Manchester decided an important change in EUNIS statutes: till now, the regular members were only “national” associations dealing with IT in Higher Education and Research. EUNIS, as the European federation of these associations, had less than thirty regular members. From this GA decision, Universities, Higher Education Institutions, and Research Institutes would also be accepted as regular members. The number of members quickly rose to more than one hundred. But some complexity was thereby introduced in EUNIS statutes. Actually, a majority of voting delegates would not consider the same way a member representing a number of universities (e.g. UCISA, ZKI, EUNIS-CZ) and a member being a single university. So, two chambers were set to elect the Council: the chamber of national organizations, and the “chamber” of institutions. Moreover, no more than two representatives of the same country could be elected to the Council (one per chamber), to avoid “big” countries to trust the seats at the Council.

Despite these statutes changes, a number of universities members of EUNIS through their national organization estimate useless to register as a direct member. That’s why the number of EUNIS members never passed (to date) one hundred and fifty.

In 2006, the Congress took place at University of Tartu, hosted by Andres Salu. A new Board was elected: Jean-François Desnos, president; Andrew Rothery, VP; Markku Kuula (Finland), treasurer; Hans-Dieter Weckmann (Germany), secretary; Bas Cordewener (the Netherlands), Jan Madey (Poland) who will become VP in 2008, Viljan Mahnic, Andres Salu (Estonia), Ivan Vrana were members.

In 2006 a second seminar for Rectors entitled “Impact of the Bologna Process” was organized in Paris by EUNIS and the European University Association. It was a success like the first one.

The same year the second E-learning workshop was organized in Birmingham by Jens Doerup (University of Aarhus, Denmark) and Andrew Rothery.

In 2007, the annual Congress took place in Grenoble for the second time, ten years after the first one. Organized by Jean-François Desnos and Yves Epelboin, it reached 375 attendees (passed by Berlin in 2001 and Amsterdam in 2003 with more than 400 delegates) from 30 countries.

Unfortunately, Jens Doerup, member of EUNIS Board and head of the E-learning Unit at the University of Aarhus, died the same year. Ivan Vrana did the trip to Denmark to represent EUNIS at his funeral. In commemoration of Jens, EUNIS decided to award each year a Jens Doerup E-learning Award. This award was defined at the next E-learning workshop, held in March 2008 in Malta.

Furthermore, the last years of his life, Jens strongly wished to hold the EUNIS Congress at his University. Thanks to his colleagues of the E-learning Unit (headed by Orla Hoppe), the 2008 Congress was held in Aarhus. It was a big success with 334 delegates from 29 countries, and a high level of presentations. During the event, the first Jens Doerup E-learning Award was given to Andreja Kovacic, Goran Bubas, and Miran Zlatovic, from the University of Zagreb, Croatia. The ceremony was strongly emotional, with the attendance of Jens wife and children. During the event, the General Assembly adopted simplified statutes, considering only one category of regular members. The two chambers were suppressed, but the intermediate body, the Council, was kept between the General Assembly and the Board, to ensure a balance of seats within nationalities.

In March 2009, a new E-learning workshop was held in Paris, managed by Gill Ferrell, and hosted by Yves Epelboin.

In June 2009, the annual Congress took place in Santiago de Compostela. During the event, the Council elected the new Board:

Jan Madey, president; Viljan Mahnic, VP; Peter Tinson (United Kingdom), treasurer; Hans-Dieter Weckmann, secretary; Pierre Ageron (France), Gill Ferrell (United Kingdom), Javier Franco (Spain), Orla Hoppe (Denmark), Arsenio Reis (Portugal), Robert Sultana (Malta) were members. 

Kristel Sarlin became the executive secretary.

In February 2010 an eLearning workshop was held in Barcelona, lead by Gill Ferrell. In March 2010 there was a MIS Research event in Bologna jointly organized by EUNIS and CINECA. The event gathered more than 100 participants

In June 2010, the annual Congress took place in Warsaw, hosted by Jan Madey (University of Warsaw) with the welcome address given by Lech Walesa — co-founder of Solidarity, Nobel Peace Price winner in 1983 and the President of Poland 1990-95. As new members of the Board John Murphy (Ireland) and Ilkka Siissalo (Finland) were elected. Javier Franco and Robert Sultana had declared their resignation. Jan Madey was re-elected as the president and Orla Hoppe became the second VP.

Further events:

2011 MIS BI Conference, Business Intelligence in Higher Education, in Hannover, Germany May 17th Co-organised by EUNIS and HIS 

EUNIS 2011  Dublin

EUNIS Elite Awards

• 2001 "Integrated Information Systems supporting institution-wide strategic and operating planning and follow-up processes", HUT, Finland “SiFEUP – The Information System of the Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto”, University of Porto, Portugal
• 2002 "LSE for you", London School of Economics, UK
• 2003 "TUG online Project", Tech. Univeristy Graz, Austria
• 2004 "SCC: a Students service Cener", Philip Harris, University of Manchester, UK
• 2005 "Masaryk University Information System", Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
• 2006 "Clauer project: certificates on a USB key", Jaume I University, Spain
• 2007 "University Study Oriented System", MUCI, Poland

Jens Doerup E-learning Awards

• 2008 "E-tivities with a Wiki: Innovative Teaching of English as a Foreign Language", University of Zagreb, Croatia
• 2009 "Enhancing Learning Using Synchronised Multimedia Annotation", University of Southampton, UK
• 2010 No Award made for technical reasons. Special commendation given for papers from University of Zagreb, Croatia, University of Reading, UK, Vaasa University of Applied Sciences, Finland

EUNIS Best Paper Awards

• 2002 "Experiences with Distributed Open Source Courses", Kristi Ala-Mutka & Tommi Mikkonen, University of Tampere, Finland & “Information infrastructures, information behaviour and trust”, David K. Allen, University of Salford, UK
• 2003 "A Decision Support System", Elsa Cardoso, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal
• 2004 "ESUP- Portal", Pascal Aubry, University of Rennes 1, France
• 2005 "EduRoam, providing mobility for users", Licia Florio, TERENA
• 2006 No competition for the Best Paper
• 2007 "Creating capability for associate support through identity management", Dave Kerr, University of Salford, UK
• 2008 "Secure Electronic Transcripts of Student Records", Mikael Berglund, Umea University, Sweden