All the volumes of O Instituto include a permanent request for the intervention of the Coimbra academic community. They also try to expand its dissemination to foreign countries. Mostly written in Portuguese, but including works in other languages also, O Instituto focused on almost every field of knowledge, from Anthropology to Zoology and from Botany to Geometry. It cultivated History and Archaeology far beyond the strict panorama of Portuguese History, dealing with Universal History as a whole.

O Instituto addressed issues of public education and instruction, as previously stated, and dedicated a vigorous encouragement to the study of philology, poetry, linguistics, and Portuguese and European literature. From the fields of law, sociology, philosophy and religion, it also scrutinised astronomy and mathematics and reported on the main advances in medicine, in an almost endless list of subjects, events, and stories. Although it wasn't nostalgic —since it was progressive in its essence— O Instituto did not look at the past with nostalgia, looking rather at examples from Portugal's own history. It was not, however, a memorial of forgotten deeds, but rather concerned with rewriting history according to scientific historiographical methods.

The historiographical interests spread by O Instituto are found in the attention given to the celebration of ephemeris and outstanding figures in the History of Portuguese Culture, as shown in the commemorative issues alluding to the centenary of the death of the Marquis of Pombal (vol. XXIV, 1877); the 4th centenary of the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus (vol. XL, 1892); the 5th centenary of the birth of Prince Henrique (vol. XLI, 1894); the 4th centenary of the discovery of the sea route to India (vol. XLV, 1898); the 1st centenary of the birth of Almeida Garrett (vol. XLVI, 1899); the 4th centenary of the voyage of Fernão de Magalhães (vol. LXVIII, 1921); the 4th centenary of the definitive establishment of the University in Coimbra (vol. XCII, 1937); the 3rd centenary of the Restoration (vol. XCVI, 1940); the 1st centenary of the foundation of the Coimbra Institute (vol. CXV, celebrated in 1953); the 5th centenary of the death of Prince Henrique (vol. CXXIII, 1961), among other celebrations.

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