The Institute for Anthropological Research is a public scientific and studies institution conducting scientific studies in all major fields of Anthropology: socio-cultural, biomedical, linguistic, and archaeological and paleontological fields. The Institute also participates in  education of highly specialized scientific staff at undergraduate and postgraduate level, transfer of scientific information at the national and international level, as well as application of results of scientific and studies work.

The Institute for Anthropological Research was founded in 1992 as the result of the need for institutionalization of scientific, professional and academic work in the field of Anthropology as a humanistic, social, natural and biomedical science in the Republic of Croatia.

The fundamental subject of the scientific work of the Institute is exploring Croatian population structure, by applying complementary biomedical, socio-cultural, linguistic, anthropogenetic, anthropoarchaelogical and anthropocybernetic studies. The holistic approach to studying population structure is differentia specifica of the Institute. Concurrent studies of biological, medical and socio-cultural features are associated with studying biotopes (ecological niches) and time (with regard to genetic generations), in order to assess the extrinsic pressures that, together with genetic (intrinsic) factors, formed the population structure of the Republic of Croatia during the (micro)evolution (over the last twenty generations).