The initiative was taken by the Royal Society (United Kingdom) which resulted in a meeting in London in June 1986 of Arnold Burgen (United Kingdom), Hubert Curien (France), Umberto Colombo (Italy), David Magnusson (Sweden), Eugen Seibold (Germany) and Ruurd van Lieshout (the Netherlands) – who agreed to the need for a new body.

Another, larger meeting took place in October 1986 with participants representing some countries in the Council of Europe and was in support for the development of a European academy.

[4] Since 1989, the Academia Europaea has evolved from its origins as an organization of predominantly "western European" scholars into a pan-European Academy of Sciences, Humanities and Letters.

The funding of the Academy is based on an original endowment, contributions from some of the member countries, special projects and by other organizations like the Leopoldina who is also supporting the Academia Europaea financially.

[4] The two key purposes of Academia Europaea are: It does not aim to replace existing national academy from respective countries.

The objectives were kept deliberately broad covering the humanities, social and natural sciences, so as to ensure interdisciplinary discourse and activities.

[32] The Academia Europaea has published European Review (ER) since 1993 on behalf of members and in conjunction with the Cambridge University Press (since 1998).

Contributions come from academics, professionals and those in public life and address multi, and interdisciplinary issues across the sciences arts, humanities and Letters.