International Centre for Bengal Studies

The International Centre for Bengal Studies was established in 1991, with the objective of advancing the study of Bengal, by scholars from Australia, Bangladesh, France, India, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, UK, USA and Canada. It had multiple independent centres in those countries, coordinated by the Amsterdam Centre. The Centre has become a partner Centre of the International Society of Bengal Studies in 2018. One major problem that was identified in the first phase of the Centre was that researchers often cannot access significant research works published by foreign scholars, often in languages non-accessible to Bengali scholars. On the other hand, Bengali research publications that merit wider circulation are not available to those foreign scholars who are not expert readers of Bengali. Through the Centre, social scientists of Bengal and abroad made a concerted effort to assist in disseminating such research through publishing works of importance from Bengali to English, and vice-versa. The Centre has published more than 40 books under this project. The Centre is now in the process of publishing a collection of essays of Sudhindranath Dutta, translated from Bengali into English. The Centre has also taken the initiative of organizing workshops on Research Methodology for scholars writing research papers in Bengali and will publish a collection of essays on Research Methodology. Abhijit Dasgupta, Professor (Retd.), Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, India, erstwhile in-charge of the Delhi Centre, is currently the Director of the Centre.