Fidelity Investments, the nation’s largest mutual fund company, is making a push to reach more investors through research.

The Boston firm said Wednesday that it has launched a separate research institute to help the public better understand and meet financial goals.

The Fidelity Research Institute will publish in-depth reports on subjects including real estate, insurance, health care, and college savings. The material will be more detailed than research published by Fidelity in the past and will cover a broader range of issues.

The executive director of the institute, Guy L. Patton, said the institute will draw on intellectual resources within Fidelity, and across the academic and policy-making communities. “We believe getting these ideas right can have real consequences,” Mr. Patton said on a conference call to discuss the institute.

How Fidelity benefits remains to be seen. The research institute may help it build better relationships through its investor centers or other customer contacts, and could play into new products it decides to offer, the group editor for Fidelity Insight, an independent investment advisory newsletter based in Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts, John Bonnanzio, said.

One goal may be to elevate discussion of important financial topics by including people who “actually effect public policy,” said Mr. Bonnanzio.

“There may be an altruistic side,” he said. “But Fidelity does very little that doesn’t ultimately result in driving revenue through its business.”

A nine-member board of directors drawn from senior Fidelity executives will govern the institute, which has an advisory board of between 15 and 20 outside members from various disciplines. Robert L. Reynolds, Fidelity vice chairman and chief operating officer, said the company “is really putting total dedication into the effort.”

Nonetheless, other universities and investment firms, including Vanguard Group Inc. and Charles Schwab Corp. (SCHW), already have similar research centers. Since 2001, the Vanguard Center for Retirement Research has done in-depth research on American retirement, savings and benefits systems. Similarly, the Schwab Center for Investment Research provides individual investors with research and investment tools.

Whether investors are well served by the Fidelity institute depends on the quality of research it produces, the director of investor protection at the Consumer Federation of America, Barbara Roper, said.

The vast majority of people want to be told what do in managing their money, according to Mrs. Roper, whose group completed a study of mutual fund practices earlier this year. Most don’t read mutual fund prospectuses or use investor education materials; in choosing a mutual fund they don’t consider the key factors that advisors agree are important, she said.

Another problem is that Americans simply don’t understand that they’re not saving enough for retirement, according to Mrs. Roper.

“It’s a big challenge to figure out what’s the information that will finally motivate people to act in their own best interests,” said Mrs. Roper. “If Fidelity is working on that problem, more power to them. Just because they have a financial stake in getting you to save with them doesn’t mean that they’re wrong in the research.”

In announcing the new institute, Fidelity reported on the results of its first project, which focused on tax-wise retirement timing and asset withdrawal strategies. The methods “counter conventional wisdom and could extend the funding of a person’s retirement by several years,” Fidelity said.