The wish of many B-cell immunologists from Europe for a European B cell research platform was the impetus to transfer the successful research networking concept of the more nationally oriented research working group “Biology of B-lymphocytes” within the German Society of Immunology (DGfI) to the European level. To realize this idea, Idit Shachar (Israel), Rita Carsetti (Italy) and Hans-Martin Jäck (Germany) sent an application for start-up funding to the European Federation of Immunological Societies (EFIS) in 2014. And after an official EFIS-funded research working group program has been initiated by the in-coming EFIS president Andrea Radbruch, our application to establish a European Research Study Group was finally accepted in October 2017.