ECIS was first held at Henley-on-Thames in the UK in 1993, when Frank Land merged two initiatives to launch a European conference for IS research. One was at Henley Management College; the other was inspired by the publication of the European Journal of Information Systems at the London School of Economics. The ECIS conference is held each year in a different European country.

With the foundation of the Association for Information Systems (AIS) in 1994, ECIS was recognised as a regional AIS conference. Today, ECIS is the leading conference for Euopean IS researchers, with an average of 130 papers being held every year. There is, however, also significant contribution from non-European countries, especially the U.S. and Australia.