It was founded in Louvain (Leuven) in 1889 and split in 1968, when the French-speaking part moved to Louvain-la-Neuve.

The institute holds the archives of Edmund Husserl, Jean Ladrière, Michel Henry and Maurice Blondel.

With the UCLouvain's School of Philosophy, the institute offers both taught and research degrees (B.A., M.A., MPhil and PhD) as well as pre-doc and post-doc programs, in French and English.

The Institute, together with its Dutch-speaking counterpart in Leuven, are well known as the home of the Husserl-Archives, the research center responsible for the publication of the philosophical work of Edmund Husserl.

[1] After the death of the founder of the phenomenological movement, fearing for the destruction of his Nachlass at the hands of the Nazis, Father Herman Van Breda (Franciscan), PhD student at the institute of the Catholic University of Louvain, saved Husserl's manuscripts, library and widow and smuggled them to Leuven via diplomatic channels.