As an interdisciplinary academic association, the Collegium Carolinum brings together internationally renowned scholars engaged in the study of the past and present in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and East Central Europe as a whole. The association currently has 66 members based in Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, France, Great Britain, Denmark, and the USA.

The institute initiates and undertakes research projects on the history of the Bohemian lands and East Central Europe with a particular emphasis on comparative studies and questions relating to changes in the political system of a certain region. The primary focus is on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and on themes ranging from the history of religion, memory, migration, regionalism, and federalism, to the history of the environment and infrastructure.

Other activities include:

• Organizing conferences, workshops, and lectures (in particular the annual conference at Bad Wiessee and the annual conference of experts on Bohemia)
• Issuing publications
• Compiling bibliographies and compendiums
• Processing requests for information and allocating research contracts
• Teaching courses at universities in Munich, Passau, and Gießen
• Participation in the Honours Master's Programme East European Studies at the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich
• Participating in the international research project Cultures of Religion in Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century Europe at the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich and the Charles University in Prague
• Supervising and advising both academics and students
• Managing the academic office of the German Section of the German-Czech and German-Slovak Historians' Commission

The institute was established in 1956 by the Free State of Bavaria in cooperation with the Federal Republic of Germany. It receives the bulk of its funding from the Bavarian State Ministry for Science, Research and the Arts. Third party funds are raised for specific projects.

The academic library overseen by the institute is home to Germany’s largest collection of specialist publications on Bohemia and the former Sudetenland (with over 153,000 titles). It is a reference library intended for on-site research (Hochstraße 8, 81669 Munich) with its own OPAC catalogue and a catalogue of periodicals.