The Institute of the History of Charles University and Archive of Charles University systematically focuses on researching the history of universities, science, and education in a broad social, cultural, and political context. The subjects it investigates thus include, among others, the history of institutions and their parts, the history of scientific disciplines, the history of scientific and teaching practice, the history of student body, the impact of a university, its teachers, and graduates on the professional life, society, culture, politics, and the like. The Institute develops interdisciplinary collaboration with other both domestic and foreign scientific institutions and societies. Alongside umbrella organisations dedicated to the history of science and academic education, the Institute traditionally finds its partners among archives of other European universities and scientific institutions. Researchers of the Institute publish partial studies and monographs, but also regularly contribute to the journal Acta Universitatis Carolinae – Historia Universitatis Carolinae Pragensis.

The Institute of the History of Charles University and Archive of Charles University is jointly with the Masaryk Institute and Archive of the Czech Academy of Sciences beneficiary of the Czech Science Foundation’s (GA ČR) grant project “Charles University and the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. Institutions of Science and Academic Education in Changing Political and Social Circumstances of 1945–1968“. It also participates in the Czech Science Foundation project “Faculty of Natural Sciences of the German University in Prague, 1920–1939”.