IPS was set up in 1964 as a non-profit international journalist cooperative. Its founders were theItalian journalist Roberto Savio and Argentine political scientist Pablo Piacentini. Initially, the primary objective was to fill the information gap between Europe and Latin America after the political turbulence following the Cuban revolution of 1959.Later the network expanded to include all continents, from its Latin American base in Costa Rica in 1982. In 1994 IPS changed its legal status to that of a "public-benefit organization for development cooperation".