Maintains and enriches the primary collections hosted by the institute: the Hungarian Folk Music and Folk Dance Archives, the Bartók Archives, the Ernő Dohnányi Archives, and the Museum of Music History, all of which are unique to Hungary, and internationally also of outstanding importance in their field. Conducts comprehensive research into the music history of Hungary, and in various fields of general music history, carries out research in the domains of ethnomusicology and ethnochoreology, especially in Hungarian and European folk music and folk dance, participates in graduate and postgraduate education in musicology in cooperation with the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest.