The Genetics Retreat was first held in 1990. In those days, most NWO grants supported PhD projects; the PhD students were required to provide yearly progress reports. In the late eighties, four human genetics research communities in the Netherlands decided to jointly organize these yearly sessions.
From the start the meeting had a unique atmosphere and thus a tradition was born. Over the years the NWO granting system has changed and the mandatory yearly progress meetings became facultative. The Genetics Retreat, however, remained the meeting event in genetics for PhD students and their supervisors.
Since 2015 the meeting is organized under the auspices of the Dutch Association for Human Genetics, NVHG and is called since then Genetics Retreat - NVHG graduate meeting.