HIPE is an abbreviation for Historical International Political Economy. It was born of a combination of frustrations; a frustration with a tendency of political scientists (including political economists) to use history as a back-projection to explain the present, a frustration with the refusal of historians to engage in contemporary discourse and to adopt (and adapt) the vocabulary and analytical frameworks of other disciplines, a frustration with seemingly endless definitional debates within political science and a frustration with the increasing detachment of the teaching of economics from the real world.

HIPE was founded by Richard T. Griffiths:
In 1995 I ran a series of research seminars at the European University Institute on the topic and in 1996-98 I introduced the concepts into Economic History teaching in Leiden University. It forms the basis of the course design for the BA International Studies that started in 2012 and the MOOC Specialisation International Political Economy. Configuring the World. I also forms the basis of current research projects.