Its aims are: In practice CIRET follows a broader definition of its own scopes, which it describes as being a "forum for leading economists and institutions concerned with analysing and predicting the development of the business cycle and the economic and socio-political consequences.

[3] As of January 2018, according to CIRET's own accounts 55 national institutions (universities, statistical offices, national banks, public and private research institutes) from 32 countries are represented among the members of CIRET as well as several international organisations like the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

[6] Among the keynote speakers of recent CIRET Conferences were the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Paul A. Volcker (New York, USA, 2010),[8] David F. Hendry (Vienna, Austria, 2012),[9][10] Bruno S. Frey (Vienna, Austria, 2012),[10] M. Hashem Pesaran (Hangzhou, China, 2014),[11][12] and Lucrezia Reichlin (Copenhagen, Denmark, 2016).

The roots of CIRET go back to 1952 when an informal group of economists of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research (Germany), the Institut National de la Statistique (INSEE, France) and the association of the Italian chambers of commerce intensified their co-operation concerning Business Tendency Surveys under the name CIMCO (Comité International pour l’Etude des Méthodes Conjoncturelles).

It was affiliated to the Econometrisch Instituut, Rotterdam and had an additional information and documentation centre at the Ifo Institute for Economic Research.