The KIPA is a professional research institute in the national administration area and think tank of the government leading and preparing the 21st century future administration.. To enhance the government's ability and comprehensive problem-solving capacity to react to changes in the administrative environment, KIPA performs projects requested by government departments, such as the Presidential Office, the Prime Minister's Office, and the Department of Public Safety, and about 30 projects spanning 6 to 7 areas out of the ones discovered by the KIPA itself.

The KIPA performs professional research and studies by obtaining service projects from government organizations, public organizations, private organizations, and companies with regard to general administration affairs, public policies, regulations, government policies, job analysis, organization diagnosis, human resources management, international exchange & cooperation, and informatization. Based on the actual results accumulated over roughly 300 projects, the KIPA generally diagnoses and evaluates any problems in each area related to administration, and then proposes and reflects a plans for improvement.

The KIPA performs a cooperative project among the research institutes under the jurisdiction of the National Research Council for Economics, Humanities and Social Science, the private research institutes, and the academic world in order to conduct research on policies across the country through a macroscopic approach to government policies and policy alternatives. In recent days, the KIPA conducted a 'study on the management of national crises in any natural disaster or national crisis (2008)' with 18 industry-academics-research institutes such as the Science and Technology Policy Institute and the Research Institute of National Crisis, and a 'study on the establishment of I-Government reflecting Web 2.0 and environmental characteristics (convergence) (2009)' with four organizations including the Korea Information Society Development Institute and the Electronics & Telecommunications Research Institute.