About Centre of Excellence for Himalayan Studies
The Himalayan region and its extended neighbourhood are both environmentally-fragile and politically-fraught. What happens here has a significant influence on the economic livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people as well as on regional and global geopolitics. The Centre of Excellence for Himalayan Studies at the Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence aims to engender a three-way conversation between central and local governments, academia and the people who live in the region even as it remains attuned to geopolitics and the attendant policy imperatives. The Centre’s geographical coverage will be wider than just the Himalayas itself and cover the Hindu Kush and the Karakoram, as well as the polities that have political jurisdiction over them.
The Centre will reflect the University’s global outlook and international ambitions, identifying and creating a network of scholars in the field, both in India and abroad, as well as bring together a wide variety of disciplinary and sectoral approaches to the study of the region. As a research institution, the Centre also aims to produce academic research that is publicly accessible and policy-relevant.