The journal originates from the Proceedings of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (or Proceedings of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen), founded in 1895.

From 1939, mathematics articles in this journal were published separately, under the alternative title Indagationes Mathematicae.

In 1951 the proceedings officially split into three journals, keeping the same name but distinguished from each other by being in separate series.

In 2010, sponsorship of the journal was transferred from the Royal Netherlands Academy to the Royal Dutch Mathematical Society, while it continued to be published by Elsevier.

[5] It is indexed in Scopus and Zentralblatt MATH with a year 2020 impact factor of 0.956.