The Institute was one of several experimental stations that were created by the High Council of Time Lords with the goal of charting a number of important scientific projects.
One of these was the determination of the feasibility of the placement of time agents into the populations of the lesser species. This was to monitor the development of Time travel technology of such less responsible species in the best interest of the planet Gallifrey. Such an act involved the Gallifreyan time agents in steering away any technological progress in the fields of tempoaral mechanics and thus control the spread of such technology. Furthermore, the Institute held a number of species that served as hosts for complex artificial intelligences that themselves were created by the use of Block Transfer Computation generators. A side effect of the process involved the erasure of the hosts original mind which led to the Institute only selecting those that were approaching death - this was done so in order to protect the integrity of the Web of Time. Typically, such hosts went mad as their minds were meant to hold the artificial intelligence consciousnesses of TARDIS's that were beyond humanoid minds.
Within the structure were time sensitives from almost fifty worlds including a hothouse wing for amphibians. The Time Lord known as Helgrim once held Dalek mutants in the Institute as part of an experiment but this ended in a disaster that led to the formation of a new law that prevented the study of Daleks despite the fact that such projects would be of great use. Another race held within the Institute were the Feledrin. (BFA: Unregenerate!)