IHMC is a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System and is affiliated with several Florida universities.

Researchers at IHMC pioneer technologies aimed at leveraging and extending human capabilities. Our human-centered approach often results in systems that can be regarded as cognitive, physical, or perceptual orthoses, much as eyeglasses are a kind of ocular orthoses. These systems fit the human and machine components together in ways that exploit their respective strengths and mitigate their respective weaknesses. The design and fit of computational prostheses require a broader interdisciplinary range than is typically found in one organization, thus IHMC staff includes computer scientists, cognitive psychologists, neuroscientists, physicians, philosophers, engineers and social scientists of various stripes, as well as some people who resist all attempts to classify them.

Current active research areas include: artificial intelligence, cognitive science, knowledge modeling and sharing, adjustable autonomy, robotics and exoskeletons, advanced interfaces and displays, cyber security, communication and collaboration, linguistics, computer-mediated learning systems, intelligent data understanding, software agents, expertise studies, work practice simulation, knowledge representation, big data and machine learning, and other related areas.

IHMC faculty and staff collaborate extensively with industry and government to develop science and technology that can be enabling with respect to society's broader goals. IHMC researchers receive funding from a wide range of government and private sources. IHMC research partners have included: DARPA, NSF, NASA, Army, Navy, Air Force, NIH, IARPA, DOT, IDEO, Raytheon, IBM, Microsoft, Rockwell Collins, Boeing, Lockheed, and SAIC, among others.