In 1963 the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) was founded as a private non-profit organization by Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Oskar Morgenstern with support from the Ford Foundation, the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, and the City of Vienna.

From its very beginning, the IHS was operating on the principle that scientific enterprise, scientific co-operation and scientific problem solutions offer a platform for critical discussions, a possibility for consensus formation, and an open and interdisciplinary place for scientific research and critical scientific expertise.

The mission of the Institute is threefold:

(a) to offer a top-level post-graduate education,

(b) to engage in frontier academic research, and

(c) to act as a key provider of (policy- and business-oriented) applied research.