The Academy is the brainchild of a gathering of eminent physicists of Northeast India, on November 11, 1997, at IIT Guwahati, celebrating hundred years of discovery of electron. The galaxy of this gathering included Prof. K. M. Pathak (founding Vice-Chancellor of Tezpur University), Y.U.G. Murti (Founding Head, Department of Physics, IIT Guwahati) among others. The PANE was formally inaugurated by the well-known educationist and physicist, late Professor G. C. Deka at IIT Guwahati on April 6, 1998, in a function chaired by Dr. D. N. Buragohain, the then director of the institute. The main headquarter of the academy was at IIT Guwahati.