The Institute exists to facilitate advanced study and research in English Studies in the wider academic community, national and international, as well as within the University of London. It promotes these objects by providing for academic discussion and the exchange of knowledge and ideas through the provision of seminars, conferences, publications and visiting fellowships, through the development of research programmes, research training and the provision of programmes of study at postgraduate level. The Institute also has close connections with The Bibliographical Society and The Malone Society, hosting their administrative offices.

The Institute's activities attract those interested in the English language and its literatures (including other national, and international literatures in English), in the History of the Book, and in cognate fields of study. Its approach is interdisciplinary, and it co-ordinates a substantial amount of inter-Institute activity within the School of Advanced Study.

The Institute aims to make available a number of its publications in SAS-SPACE. Items including the documentary outcomes of Research Projects undertaken in its Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies. University Trust Lectures (e.g. the John Coffin and the Hilda Hulme Memorial lectures), papers from presentations given at or in association with the Institute, including selected Research Seminar papers, and outstanding dissertations at Masters and Doctoral level will be progressively and retrospectively added.