The International Society for Epic Studies (ISES) has been established by the participants of the "2012 International Summit on Epic Studies: Toward Diversity, Creativity and Sustainability," which took place in November17 to 18, 2012 in Beijing, P. R. of China. The participants came to the consensus to establish the Society, and nominated Chao Gejin (Institute of Ethnic Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) as the first President. The Vice-Presidents represent Russia (Dmitry Funk, Russian Academy of Sciences), USA (Gregory Nagy, Harvard University), Germany (Karl Reichl, Bonn University) and Finland (Lauri Harvilahti, Finnish Literature Society).