ATN traces its origins back to 1975 as the Directors of Central Institutes of Technology (DOCIT), and was revived in 1999 in its present form with changes to its membership announced in 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2023.

ATN is the second largest university grouping in Australia, in terms of student numbers and research funding.

[2] The ATN originated in 1975 as the "Directors of Central Institutes of Technology (DOCIT)", a conference group consisting of the directors of Australia's leading "institutes of technology".

Each of DOCIT's original member institutions (NSWIT, QIT, RMIT, SAIT and WAIT[note 1]) were located in the central business district of their respective state's capital city, hence they were deemed "central institutes of technology".

DOCIT founded its original member institutes' distinctiveness on their size (they enrolled almost one third of all full-time advanced education students), on the advanced level of their teaching (most of their programs were degrees rather than the diplomas like that of other advanced education institutions) and their conduct of applied research (DEET, 1993:18).