[3] There were 59 participants at the inaugural meeting during a World Exhibition in Ghent, Belgium, in July 1913, called to discuss the possibility of forming a global federation of consulting engineers.

Of these, 19 were official delegates from the US, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands and Switzerland, with the remainder coming from Austria–Hungary, Canada, Russia and the UK.

The first member associations from the developing world, from Central Africa (now Malawi), Zambia and Zimbabwe, joined in 1962.

[5] In March 2018, Nelson Ogunshakin was appointed as the new CEO of FIDIC, to replace its retiring managing director, Enrico Vink.

The organization arranges a number of seminars and training courses, including the World Consulting Engineer Conference.