[1] Its mission is to develop and disseminate scholarly knowledge of the literature, history, and culture of the Near East, as well as the study of civilization from pre-history to the early Islamic period.

[3] Located in a 1920s-period building, now a Jerusalem landmark, the Albright maintains residential and research facilities including a 35,000 volume library, publications offices, and archaeological laboratories.

It provides an opportunity for students and scholars from all over the world including Israelis and Palestinians to interact and exchange information and ideas in a friendly and convivial environment, which is not duplicated in any other such institution in the region.

More than 3,000 persons participate in the Albright Institute's annual wide range of programs including lectures, reports, workshops, field trips, and social events.

[6] In the academic year 2012–13, the institute initiated the Seymour Gitin Distinguished Professorship, which is open to internationally recognized senior scholars of all nationalities who have made significant contributions to their field of study.

In the spring of 1948, the institute was contacted by a representative of Mar Samuel, the metropolitan (archbishop) of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Jerusalem, who wanted to authenticate four ancient scrolls that he had recently purchased from an antiquities dealer.

One of the younger scholars in residence at the institute at that time, John C. Trever, recognized the antiquity of the manuscripts and photographed three of the four scrolls in the basement of the Albright under very adverse conditions.

In 1952, Roland de Vaux, the head of the French Biblical School in Jerusalem, organized a search of the caves in the cliffs above the Dead Sea near the site of Qumran.

In addition, former fellow and trustee Jodi Magness (University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill) has produced the seminal work on Qumran archaeology in the twenty-first century.

In 1996, a significant artifact for the corpus of Biblical Archaeology was recovered, a monumental dedicatory inscription of the seventh-century king of Ekron Ikausu.

Both Padi and Ikausu are mentioned in the seventh century BCE Neo-Assyrian Royal Annals as kings of Ekron, thus providing a basis for dating their reigns.

This makes the Ekron Inscription prime documentary evidence for establishing the chronology of events relating to the late biblical period, especially the history of the Philistines.