The Centre was established in 1997 as the result of a special government initiative. Until 2018 it organisationally belonged to the University Specialised Centres (USV). Between 1999-2016 the Centre was housed at Ideon and then moved to its current premises in January 2017. The first director of the Centre was Professor Michael Schoenhals, 1997-2003, and between 2003-2016 Professor Roger Greatrex served as the director. The current director, Professor Marina Svensson, was appointed to the position on 1 October 2016.

In 2017, the Vice-Chancellor of Lund University made the decision that all Centers at USV would be organizationally relocated to a faculty. After careful consideration, the Center chose the Joint Faculty of Humanities and Theology, where it has been placed in the Department of History since January 2019.

Until 2012 the Centre did not have any permanent lecturers but only postdoctoral fellows and researchers with external funding. Since then the Centre has built up a permanent staff of lecturers while also hosting postdoctoral fellows and researchers.