The Universities Athletic Union was set up in response to the desire of Universities to establish sporting competition between their students. An inter-'varsity sports meeting was arranged at a conference held in March 1919, and an organising committee, to be known as the Inter-varsity Athletics Board of England and Wales, was also established. The Board did not limit itself to arrangements for competition, and at this first conference, made certain recommendations about student sport to the Board of Education. The activities and concerns of IVAB were established at an early stage. Unfortunately the archive contains little material relating to this earlier period, although the Annual reports (B16/1-5) give some indication of their activities.

The sporting interests of the Board was not limited to Athletics - in fact, the word 'athletics' seems to have been the general term for all student sporting activity. In 1922, for instance, divisional championships were set up in Association Football, Hockey, Rugby Union and Swimming, and these sports were joined by many others as students demanded championships. In the early years there were no similar organisations or arrangements for championships in Scotland or Ireland, IVAB accepted membership from Universities in these areas until 1963, when the British Universities Sports Federation took on the responsibility (see D.741 E).

In 1930, the organisation was renamed the Universities Athletics Union. From the records it appears that the UAU was the motivating force behind all activities of student sport in Britain until the 1950s. For instance, it controlled student participation in the World University games from the earliest event in which British students took part (Paris, 1928) until 1953, when the British Universities' Sports Board was set up (see D. 741 I). But even then the UAU remained central, being one of the bodies involved in the establishment of the BUSB, and the close links between the British Universities Sports Federation (as BUSB became known) and the UAU is reflected in the records. Ironically, the formation of the BUSF marked the end of UAU's dominance of sporting activities, as the Federation began to organise championships in sports which the UAU had not recognised.

Until 1953, the only other sporting body administering championships in Britain was the Women's Inter-'Varsity Athletics Board (see D.741 C). The UAU worked closely with WIVAB, and this co-operation increased as the range of student sporting activity increased. In 1979, the co-operation had reached such a high level, it was decided that the two organisations should amalgamate, and be administered by the UAU. In 1993/1994 the UAU itself amalgamated with the BUSF to form the British Universities' Sports Association.