Since its foundation in 1950, the Commission for the Study and Improvement of Mathematics Teaching (CIEAEM) intended to investigate the actual conditions and the possibilities for the development of mathematics education in order to improve the quality of teaching mathematics. The annual conferences, which are the essential means for realizing this goal, are characterized by exchange and discussion of the research work and its realisation in practice and by the dialogue between researchers and educators in all domains of practice.

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In its work, the Commission follows the humanist tradition of the founders of CIEAEM to integrate the scientific goal of research in mathematics education with the political goal to improve the quality of mathematics education with respect to general education: to educate people who are more rationally acting, critically and consciously thinking as citizens as well as future scientists by using and applying mathematical reasoning and mathematical tools.
Early CIEAEM conferences mainly brought together European mathematicians and mathematics teachers from secondary schools with a presupposed common interest and background in mathematics teaching in order to share views, experiences and intentions for the improvement of mathematics education. The changing conditions for teaching and learning mathematics by extending compulsory schooling, however, raised a growing interest in research in mathematics education and influenced our conferences and their actually relevant themes. CIEAEM became more attractive to a broader international audience: for colleagues from abroad, from non-industrialised and (ex-) socialist countries, and also more and more for primary school teachers.

Developments in mathematics education as a scientific discipline and reflections within CIEAEM changed the topics and subjects of themes conferences, the research fields and the debates: from a concentration or restriction on content reformulation or selection and on methodological questions in mathematics education themes later addressed broader epistemological, psychological, sociological and technological problems, the conditions of the educational environment (interaction, evaluation and assessment), and the raise of problems in connection with newly developed technologies.

CIEAEM has always been more than just an annual exchange of research work or a debate on educational developments among researchers. CIEAEM conferences are a unique meeting place where teachers and researchers work together and exchange their experiences and views in a friendly and stimulating climate: from practice and theory, from research and its critique or application into educational development.