[2] The Institute currently employs a dozen persons, who work either in the Tallinn main office or branches abroad in Finland (Helsinki, founded in 1995)[3] and Hungary (Budapest, est.

The foundation of the Estonian Institute as civic initiative in the late 1980s derived from the practical need to establish permanent international contacts, which would no longer be controlled by the Soviet authorities.

The plan compiled in summer 1988 by Lennart Meri listed the tasks of the Institute as follows: developing permanent cultural and educational foreign relations and introducing Estonia abroad.

The Institute’s information and culture points operated in various places in Western Europe and Scandinavia, and quite a few developed into an embassy of the Republic of Estonia in the course of restoring diplomatic relations.

Over the years the Institute has published dozens of information booklets and periodicals about Estonia, compiled web pages, organised festivals, exhibitions, conferences and seminars, received journalists, researchers and lecturers, translators and writers, opened culture and information centres in other countries, granted scholarships, despatched lecturers of Estonian language and culture to universities abroad and supplied the study centres with relevant material.