CIGI’s story began with its incorporation as The New Economy Institute. Founded as a non-profit institution on the principle that better global governance can improve people’s lives, CIGI made its first home at the Waterloo–St. Jacobs railway station in Waterloo, Ontario.

Then CIGI Executive Director John English, founder Jim Balsillie and then Member of Parliament Andrew Telegdi announced matching federal funds for the organization in July 2002. The donation was made by Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

In September 2003, CIGI moved into the former warehouse of a whisky distillery operated by Joseph E. Seagram and Sons, Ltd. The building housed the Seagram Museum from 1984 to 1997 and was purchased from the City of Waterloo. It is considered an icon of Canadian postmodernism.

Paul Martin, then Canada’s prime minister, was the guest of honour at a meeting of the International Advisory Board of Governors at CIGI’s office. While Canada’s finance minister, Martin was among Jim Balsillie’s early advisers on the creation of CIGI in 2001.

Research publications are one of the core products of a think tank. CIGI’s first official publication was written by Andrew Cooper, a University of Waterloo professor and international relations expert, in October 2005.

CIGI’s early research was focused on two thematic areas: international relations and the international economy. To encourage student engagement in these world issues, CIGI initiated a one-day annual conference for high school students called the Global Youth Forum.

David Johnston, then the president of the University of Waterloo and later the governor general of Canada, spoke at the launch of the Balsillie School of International Affairs, a partnership between CIGI, the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University.

In July 2008, CIGI, in partnership with Makerere University and the Salama Shield Foundation, launched the Africa Initiative, a multi-year, donor-supported program with three components: research, grants and an exchange program.

In March 2009, TVO’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin broadcasted live from CIGI for an episode on the social impact of the economic downturn on Ontario communities. Guests included Jim Balsillie and the Honourable John Wilkinson, then Ontario’s minister of research and innovation.

KPMB architect Shirley Blumberg toured the CIGI Campus under construction. The campus, envisioned as a hub for research and academic partnerships among CIGI and other institutions, was funded by the federal and provincial governments with a land lease donation by the City of Waterloo.

The CIGI Campus opened in September 2011 with a week-long program of events that coincided with CIGI’s tenth anniversary celebration. A panel at the Can Think Tanks Make a Difference? conference included Kim Campbell, former prime minister of Canada, and Chrystia Freeland, then global editor-at-large, Thomson Reuters Digital.

Former Prime Minister Paul Martin, then CIGI President Tom Bernes and investor George Soros spoke at the Sovereign Debtors in Distress conference. The conference was part of a partnership announced in 2011 between CIGI and the Institute for New Economic Thinking founded by Soros.

Former Prime Minister Joe Clark — an early member of CIGI’s former advisory board — spoke to a packed auditorium at the CIGI Campus. He argued that governments can benefit from relationships with non-governmental organizations, such as think tanks, with a capacity for innovation.

CIGI is perhaps best known for its role in laying the groundwork for the creation of the G20 Leaders’ Summit, a concept put forward by then Prime Minister Paul Martin. The first summit was held in 2008. CIGI Senior Fellow Bessma Momani was interviewed at the Brisbane G20 Summit.

General Tom Lawson, former chief of the defence staff of the Canadian Armed Forces, spoke at CIGI’s Global Policy Forum. The forum was launched in 2012 and has been a fixture at the Rideau Club in Ottawa for informative policy lectures and discussions.

The final report of the Global Commission on Internet Governance was presented by Sweden’s former Prime Minister Carl Bildt to then OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría in June 2016. It championed internet access, freedom of expression and the free flow of ideas over the internet.

Responding to a global refugee crisis, CIGI launched the World Refugee Council in May 2017. Chair Lloyd Axworthy, former Canadian minister of foreign affairs, Deputy Chair Paul Heinbecker and former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan attended the launch.

CIGI hosted a panel on women’s economic empowerment in April 2018. Event organizer Oonagh Fitzgerald, then director of CIGI’s International Law Research Program, was joined by Stephen de Boer, then Canadian ambassador and permanent representative to the World Trade Organization.

CIGI and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) hosted a presentation on the data-driven economy by then CIGI Senior Fellow Mark Doms, and future chief economist at the Congressional Budget Office, at the IMF’s headquarters in Washington, DC, in April 2019.

Then CIGI President Rohinton P. Medhora addressed global leaders on the need for a multilateral Digital Stability Board at an event hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in February 2020.

As part of the Think20 (T20) Spring Roundtables in the run-up to the annual meeting of G20 leaders, held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Robert Fay, then managing director of digital economy at CIGI, co-chaired task-force discussions on building trust in digital technologies.

Bringing deep experience in international relations, economics and governance, board member Paul Samson joined CIGI as president in September.

Research from the first phase of the Supporting Safer Digital Spaces project, released at RightsCon in Costa Rica in June 2023, found that almost 60 percent of survey participants had experienced some form of online harm and that almost 25 percent of those who experienced harm felt they were targeted because of their gender identity.

In its first year, the Digital Policy Hub — a collaborative space for emerging scholars and innovative thinkers to share and develop research on the evolution and governance of transformative technologies — hosted 26 fellows, including students and experts from the public and private sector.

CIGI hosted the 2025 Think7 (T7) engagement, producing 20 policy briefs and a communiqué outlining policy recommendations for the G7 Leader’s Summit and related ministerials. At the T7 Summit held at CIGI in April, CIGI President Paul Samson presented the recommendations of the chairs and co-chairs of the four task forces to Cindy Termorshuizen, Sherpa and deputy minister for the G7 Summit.