The Society was established by a group of British scholars following an international conference on the subject at New Lanark, the site of a famous experiment in industrial organisation by the early socialist Robert Owen.
The Society was re-launched in 1999, following the "Millennium of Utopias" conference at the University of East Anglia.
[1] Prominent utopian studies scholars associated with the European Society include Gregory Claeys, Lyman Tower Sargent, Ruth Levitas, Tom Moylan, Raffaella Baccolini, Artur Blaim, Vincent Geoghegan, Lucy Sargisson and Fatima Vieira.
A number of significant publications have arisen from these conferences.
[3] At its 2019 conference the Society conferred a Distinguished Service Award on Professor Darko Suvin, its Guest of Honour and Keynote Speaker.