Kurdish and Turkish intellectuals such as Musa Anter, Yaşar Kaya, İsmail Beşikçi, Cemşid Bender, Feqî Huseyîn Sagniç,[1] Abdurrahman Dürre, İbrahim Gürbüz and Süleyman İmamoğlu were among the founding members.
The institute's main research activities were in the fields of linguistics, folklore and history.
[2] The institute held courses in the languages Zazaki, Kurmanji and Sorani, [2]and provided certificates of translation into/from Kurdish.
It has published a Kurdish-Turkish dictionary (Büyük Türkçe-Kürtçe sözlük / Ferhanga Mezın Tırkî Kurdî and Büyük Kürtçe-Türkçe Sözlük / Ferhanga Mazın Kurdî Turkî) prepared by Zana Farqînî in 2004.
[5] The institute was again closed down and sealed on the morning of 31 December 2016, per a declaration issued under Article 11 of the Turkish State of Emergency (OHAL).