The International Centre for Ecotourism Research is a Strategic Research Centre of Griffith University, which will shortly start its third decade of operations. It was opened in 1993 by the Minister for Tourism in the Australian Government. In the mid 1990s, ICER lead the bid to establish a Cooperative Research Centre in Sustainable Tourism, with its headquarters at Griffith University; and from 1998-2002, ICER lead the CRCST research programme on nature based tourism.
From 2009, ICER has lead Griffith University’s Area of Strategic Investment in Sustainable Tourism, ASIST, one of seven areas in which the University lays claim to global pre-eminence or recognition. In this capacity, ICER currently conducts research in four main themes: conservation tourism, responsible tourism, adventure tourism, and tourism and climate change. Griffith was recently recognised as world #1 in sustainable tourism research, based on publications in top-ranked tourism journals.