[1][2] Located in the complex of buildings of the École militaire, it has a staff of around forty people.
[6] Created de facto in September 2009 and de jure by a decree of October 15, 2010,[7][8] IRSEM was attached to the Armed Forces Staff (EMA) for 5 years before coming under the supervision of the General-Directorate for International Relations and Strategy (Direction générale des relations internationales et de la stratégie, DGRIS) in 2015.
[2] As of September 2020, IRSEM was part of the portfolio of the Director of Defense Strategy, Foresight and Counter-Proliferation of the DGRIS.
[10] IRSEM has four missions, namely research, both internal (for the ministry) and external (open publications);[11] "strategic succession" (support for young researchers, through doctoral and postdoctoral funding and a monthly young researchers' seminar);[12] contribution to higher military education (at the War School and at the Center for Advanced Military Studies), and contribution to public debates.
[13] IRSEM has its own collections in different formats (Strategic Briefs, Research Papers, Studies and the scientific journal Les Champs de Mars published by the Presses de Sciences Po).