The Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis (ISH) is the first and only autonomous higher education institution in the field of humanities and social sciences in Slovenia. In 1995 it attained state recognition and was authorised to confer MA and PhD degrees for its accredited study programmes. The National Board of Higher Education has accredited five Masters programmes offered by ISH: Anthropology of Everyday Life, Anthropology of the Ancient Worlds, Anthropology of Genders, Historical Anthropology, Linguistics of Speech, and Theory of Social Communication. ISH collaborates with the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana based on a credit system. ISH actually started to develop in 1987 with the launch of a book series featuring Slovene translations of international literature dealing with humanities and social sciences, called Studia Humanitatis. Since its foundation, 80 works have been published in 86 volumes. In 1997 the series was reorganised into the independent publishing house Studia humanitatis. The second step in the creation of the ISH was the establishment of a research institute in 1991.

ISH has four main goals: to conduct graduate study of disciplines and fields not offered by other Slovene institutions of higher education; to offer study programmes of interest to students from a region which expands beyond Slovenia's border, from the West as well as from Central and Eastern Europe; to create possibilities for Slovene university teachers and researchers to work in fields that are poorly represented in the Slovene scientific environment; and to establish close co-operation and ties with international higher education institutions engaged in the same or similar fields as those in which ISH specialises. Since 1995 there has been ongoing formal co-operation with the Centre Louis Gernet at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris. Discussions on co-operation with numerous other eminent institutions in Europe and the USA are currently underway. Furthermore, ISH is currently drawing up joint projects for the development of new graduate programmes, as well as a scheme to facilitate teacher and student exchanges.

In December 2003 ISH opened a Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, the first such institution in Slovenia. The Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies will research the Jewish culture, language, literature and history.