The Institute forms a center of excellence in the covered research areas while it maintains strong relationship with universities and serves as a postgraduate education center, too. The fundamental task of the Institute is to perform basic and applied research in the field of intelligent systems, to establish reference and pilot installations by making use of the targets, tools and methods of informatics. Research fields are listed hereafter in four main groups. In 1990, along with keeping pace with the profound changes in the Hungarian economic and social system, the Institute underwent a radical restructuring process. Each unit is characterized by democratic decision making and by evaluation based upon clearly measurable results.
Many researchers are members of editorial boards of leading international scientific periodicals.