In 1919, at the initiative of the Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie (CCI), the Institut d'Etudes Supérieures Spécialisées[citation needed], or European Institute for Higher Business Studies, (IECS) was created.

In 1999, the IECS moved to a new building, the PEGE (European Center of Management and Economics).

[1] The school was the first French public institution to get a four-year "diversity" label issued by AFNOR in 2012.

The school maintains a large undergraduate and graduate exchange program with nearly 200 partner institutions located in 55 countries all over the world, such as Trinity College, Dublin, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, and HEC Montréal.

Since 2000 and as of 2020[update] it has been one of the elite grandes écoles in France, ranking in the top 17 business schools in the nation.