The European Center for Virtual Reality (CERV) was created in Brest (France) as an initiative of the Computer Engineering Laboratory (LI2) at Brest National Engineering School (ENIB).

The LI2 was initially known as the Industrial Computing Laboratory. It was founded in 1990 by Jacques Tisseau and Serge Morvan to deal with the thematic of virtual reality. The laboratory changed its name in 2002 to become the Computer Engineering Laboratory.

In 1990 it employed 2 lecturers and 1 PhD student. The number of staff steadily increased up until the year 2000 when there were 10 lecturers, 4 PhD students and 1 secretary. From 2000, this increase accelerated dramatically to 25 lecturers, 17 PhD students, 8 engineers and 2 secretaries on arrival in the new CERV building in September 2004.

In order to deal with the new personnel effectively, the LI2 gradually split into 3 teams: ARéVi, In Virtuo and SARA.

It is these3 teams that made up the initial structure of the CERV when it opened in June 2004.