The centre's tasks include research, development of methodology, documentation and coordination activities in the closely connected disciplines of sepulchral studies and medieval and early-modern Latin epigraphy as “auxiliary sciences” of art history, in correspondence with one of the institute's priorities. The centre was established in 2005 based on previously amassed epigraphic documentation. It organizes annual interdisciplinary conferences about sepulchral monuments and publishes the series Epigraphica et Sepulcralia. Fórum epigrafických a sepulkrálních studií / Forum of epigraphic and sepulchral studies and Epigraphica et Sepulcralia – monographica. The centre's members (Jiří Roháček) teach epigraphy at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University and the Faculty of Arts at the University of South Bohemia. The centre is also active in the field of applied research and heritage conservation (Jiří Roháček, Epigraphy in Heritage Protection, certified methodology of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and Jiří Roháček et al., Sepulchral monuments in the practice of monument care, certified methodology of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic) and participates in outreach activities. The professional public can make use of the centre's library of specialized literature and other resources.
The centre currently focuses on its most important tasks: the epigraphic database (Strategy AV21), collaboration on the grant project Monumenta mortis et memoriae. Sepulchral sculpture in the visual arts of the Czech Middle Ages (GA ČR) and the institutional project Catalog of the oldest Czech epigraphic fond (until 1350). It also participates in the project Gothic and Early Renaissance in East Bohemia. Research, Interpretation and Presentation (Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, NAKI II). The centre concluded its joint project with the Department of Archival Administration and Records Management at the Ministry of Interior of the Czech Republic, Catalogue of Secondary Sources for Epigraphic and Sepulchral Monuments, Held in Czech Archives (2011–2019)]; the resulting publication was published in 2020.
Other recent outcomes include Epigraphica et Sepulcralia 9. Prague 2020 (ed. Jiří Roháček), the 19th conference on sepulchral monuments. Prague 2020 (Jiří Roháček) and the publication of the first version of the epigraphic database 2019 (Jiří Roháček, David Vrána). In 2021, an extremely extensive and valuable requisition documentation of the bells of the Czech, Moravian and Silesian borderlands from 1942–1943 was published (Radek Lunga, Jiří Roháček), see Umlčené hlasy.
The centre collaborates with a number of institutions in both the Czech Republic and abroad (Faculty of Art at Charles University, Epigraphisches Forschungs- und Dokumentationszentrum LMU, the project Corpus inscriptionum Slovaciae of Komenský University in Bratislava, and others).
