Its vast content included the bulletins of the Instituto de Coimbra (extracts from the minutes and deliberations of the General Assembly, the Board, and the Classes, etc.), but above all it included specialised articles on sciences, arts and literature written by members and external national and foreign collaborators. Of course, the scope of O Instituto was intended to reach university and scientific circles as its preferred readership. However, the periodical presented itself as a vehicle for disseminating and exchanging knowledge inter pares : a tool at the service of the literary-scientific debates in vogue. As far as possible, the editors of O Instituto avoided disputes and polemics—although their interest in social causes and short-term political issues was evident—and the periodical was presented as "a stranger to politics".

From the outset, the Instituto de Coimbra took steps in favour of cultural and scientific dissemination, seeking to foster the creation of a more enlightened public opinion that was connected to a liberal model of citizenship. In fact, in this sense, the Institute promoted the so-called "Reading Courses", which were lesson cycles and free courses within each class of the Institute, which were also accompanied by debates and aimed at a diverse public beyond the restricted university environment.

O Instituto was presented to readers with a defence of its belief in popular education by evoking the glories of the progress of science and literature, which were so sui generis throughout the 19th century. This illustrated a general orientation in programmatic terms: "The fortunate tendencies of this century do not tolerate science being covered with the veils of mystery. When God allowed scholars to discover the physical, moral, and social laws of Nature, He did not do it out of pride but for the sake of mankind. The aristocracy of science is only tolerable when it is exercised for the public good and in a general illustration. Today, the man who cannot follow public courses, he who is forced to devote his entire life to bodily fatigue, the humble craftsman, and the hard-working labourer: these men also seek knowledge. Reason, experience, social welfare, the nature of institutions and governments, and the urgent general needs of the political sphere justify this desire: what's more, they imperatively require it to be fulfilled. The scientific and literary newspaper has no small part to play in this noble mission. It allows the fundamental notions of all the sciences to be communicated in an easy language, stripped of the apparatus of schools, to those who cannot cultivate them more deeply" (Adrião P. Forjaz, "Introdução" [Introduction], O Instituto, no. 1, 15 March 1852, p. 2).

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