ERHIMOR was created in order to explore new directions in the history of agriculture and the rural world and to renew the established field of family history. It seeks to examine these questions in a broad international context, as a key to understanding contemporary society and as a means of fostering the widest possible dialogue across international boundaries. 

ERHIMOR’s prime area of interest covers the relations between town and country, the links of the countryside to markets, changes in property law and their social, economic and environmental impact, the links between growth, transformation, specialisation and intensification, the construction of social bonds and the extent of inequality, and government agricultural aid policies. The second area is that of the mechanisms of social reproduction in their relations with the land, life-cycles and migration. 

ERHIMOR was created by merging two teams at the Centre des Recherches Historiques that had a common research interest in the history of the rural world. One was the GRHEC (Groupe de Recherches sur l'Histoire des Campagnes); the other was the Groupe Histoire Familiale et Sociale de la Transmission, co-ordinated respectively by Gérard Béaur (CNRS and EHESS) and Joseph Goy (EHESS).

EHRIMOR's core members are Gérard Béaur, Joseph Goy, Fabrice Boudjaaba, Alain Chatriot, Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux, Laurent Herment, Pablo Luna, Béatrice Marin, Mathieu Marraud and Arlette Schweitz. It brings together researchers, teachers and doctoral students with an interest in the history of the rural world and the history of the family.

With a timespan stretching from the Middle Ages to the contemporary world, and a preference for thelongue durée, ERHIMOR strives to go beyond chronological limits and the boundaries of individual disciplines. Although firmly grounded in the analysis of historical change, ERHIMOR's researchers happily borrow, adopt or criticise the concepts, methods and assumptions of other social sciences. They move freely across geographical boundaries in research that takes in not only all of Europe, but also the other continents, constantly striving for a considered and through comparative approach. 

ERHIMOR's research effort has long benefited from its institutional link to the activities of the international research group CORN (Comparative Rural Studies of the North-Sea Area), directed by Erik Thoen. It also participates in the research activities led by the Centre de Recerca d'História Rural of the University of Girona (Catalonia) under the leadership of Rosa Congost. In the framework of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique programme SORE-HCE (also termed Sociétés Rurales Européennes - Histoire des Campagnes Européennes), ERHIMOR organized the research programme known as GDR 2912 between 2005 and 2012. It also piloted the European research programme COST A35 Progressore (Programme de Recherches et d'Etudes des Sociétés Rurales Europénnes) from 2005 to 2009. Most recently, the ERHIMOR team launched a GDRI programme Crises and Change in the European Countryside (CRICEC), in close collaboration with research groups in Albacete (Spain), Girona (Catalonia), Leuven (Belgium), Lisbon (Portugal), Lund (Sweden), Münster (Germany), Padua (Italy) and Rennes2 (France).

Within the ERHIMOR framework, two seminars are held, each twice a month, at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (190 avenue de France, 75013 Paris). The seminar Histoire Economique et Sociale des Campagnes (17e- 20e siècles) is organized by Gérard Béaur, Alain Chatriot, Laurent Herment and Pablo Luna, with the collaboration of Annie Antoine, Jean-Michel Chevet, Jean Duma and Nadine Vivier. It meets on Fridays from 3 to 5 pm. The seminar Familles: alliances, transmission, migrations, rapports à la terre et aux marchés (18e-20e siècles), under the supervision of Joseph Goy, Gérard Béaur, Fabrice Boudjaaba, Rolande Bonnain-Dulon et Jean-Paul Desaive, meets on Wednesdays  from 17 to 19 pm. These two seminars offer a teaching framework for students working on their masters or doctoral degrees and a place in which scholars from both France and abroad can meet to discuss their research.