IFUSCO was created in 1984 in
Göttingen by local students of Finno-Ugric studies, to facilitate contact between other students. The conference was initially a small gathering that mainly served as a forum and as a way of exchanging information. The first IFUSCO had 26 participants from the
Netherlands (
Groningen) and
Germany (Göttingen,
Hamburg). Later it has turned into a conference format where lectures are given by and for students. IFUSCO is organized in a different city and by a different university every year. Since the first conference there have been 40 IFUSCOs held in 23 different cities and 10 different countries.
Russian universities have organised the largest number of conferences, eight in total, the first of which was held in 1999 in
Syktyvkar and the latest in 2013 in the same city. Among individual cities,
Helsinki and
Budapest have hosted the most conferences, four each. The conference has been cancelled twice in its history. First cancellation happened in 2001, when the conference was supposed to be held in
Izhevsk, Russia. In 2020 the conference was meant to be held by
Riga,
Latvia, but got postponed until the following year due to
COVID-19. IFUSCO in 2021 was held fully online. The conferences after that have offered a chance for partial online participation. In 2016 IFUSCO was originally supposed to be held in
Khanty-Mansiysk on 7–9 April. It was postponed twice before finally being cancelled. However, the Finnish students of Finno-Ugric studies organized its small version at the
University of Helsinki in order to keep the tradition. ==Locations and dates==