ZMO emerged from the “History of Developing Countries” section of the Institute for General History (IfAG) at the AdW. That department, in turn, evolved from several predecessors – including the “Institut für Orientforschung”, which operated from 1947 to 1968 – and ultimately from the “Oriental Commission”, a department of the Prussian Academy of Sciences founded in 1912.
Following German reunification, ZMO was founded in 1991, initially as “Forschungsschwerpunkt Moderner Orient” under the patronage of the Max Planck Society. In 1996, it was re-established as a non-university centre for historical, cultural, and social sciences. The umbrella organisation for ZMO is the Humanities Centers Berlin (Geisteswissenschaftliche Zentren Berlin e.V.), whose membership includes, among others, Berlin universities and several German academies. The core research programme is funded within the framework of the Leibniz Association by the Senate Department for Higher Education and Research of the State of Berlin, the DFG German Research Foundation, and the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space. The centre joined the Leibniz Association on 1 January 2017.
ZMO is located in the Mittelhof, a historic villa in Berlin’s Nikolassee district which was designed by Hermann Muthesius and built between 1914 and 1918.