[2] The Institute investigates socioeconomic conditions in South Africa, and aims to address issues such as poverty and inequality, and to promote economic growth through promoting a system of limited government, a market economy, private enterprise, freedom of speech, individual liberty, property rights, and the rule of law.

[3] The IRR tracks trends in every area of South Africa's development, ranging from business and the economy to crime, living conditions, and politics.

[4]: 79, 84  In 1958, Gwendolen M. Carter wrote that "the Institute keeps close touch with non-European groups and over a long period of time has constituted itself as a spokesman for their interests.

"[5]: 336  In more recent years the IRR and its work has also been variously labelled as right-wing (for instance by the academic Roger Southall[6] and former Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba[7]), conservative (in a New Frame editorial[8] and by NEHAWU Western Cape secretary Luthando Nogcinisa[9]), and reactionary (by former NUMSA spokesperson Irvin Jim[10]), although it describes itself as adhering to classical liberalism.

[11][12] During the periods of segregation and Apartheid, the IRR mostly drew its support from urbanites, tending to be from United Party-dominated parliamentary wards, who had a more "liberal" view on South Africa's race question.

[14]: 26  In 1996, the academic Hugh Corder, and later critic,[15] described the IRR as an important “national asset.”[16]: 133 Charles Templeman Loram and Maurice Evans established the Native Affairs Reform Association in Natal in 1910.

Alexander's Commission on Interracial Cooperation sought to “promote harmony” between white and black Americans toward the end of the First World War.

The members were from black groups, and it was mostly conservatives and moderates from the middle class that participated, even though the sentiment that led to the establishment of the councils was a liberal one.

The meeting was called to order at 11 o’clock in the morning, and by the time it ended at 5 o’clock in the afternoon the Institute of Race Relations had been formed.” The founders, according to Byrne, were Rheinallt Jones, Charles Loram, J Howard Pim (a government official), Edgar Brookes, Johannes du Plessis (a missionary and theologian), Davidson Don Tengo Jabavu (one of the first professors at the University of Fort Hare), JH Nicholson (Mayor of Durban), and JG van der Horst.

[24]: 49 In June 2013, the IRR published a policy bulletin [25] that challenged the concept of anthropogenic climate change, which gained significant media traction.

[31] In March 2019, the IRR was criticized for working with columnist David Bullard after they announced that they were hosting an event with him at Stellenbosch University.

[35] In March 2019, the IRR called on lobby group AfriForum to retract a documentary that "seemingly sanitises the motives behind Apartheid and the brutality of its practices".