Pakistan is the Islamic successor state of the Mughal Empire and the most important representative of the eastern Islamic world in international affairs. The American Institute of Pakistan Studies (AIPS), a consortium of twenty-five American institutions of higher education, has promoted research by American scholars in and on Pakistan since 1973. The Institute’s Islamabad center is administered by a director and local staff and provides visiting fellows and scholars with programs of lectures, seminars and workshops, as well as introductions to public and private research institutions in Pakistan.

AIPS’s programs include pre- and post-doctoral research fellowships, tenable in Pakistan, short-term positions as Scholar-in-Residence at the Islamabad center, short-term lectureships that enable Pakistani scholars to visit member institutions in the United States, and occasional thematic conferences in both the United States and Pakistan. The Institute also promotes the organization of panels relating to the study of Pakistan at the annual meeting of the Association of Asian Studies, and the annual South Asia Conferences at Madison.  Travel grants are available for scholarly presentations, and former holders of fellowships giving papers at these conferences are encouraged to apply to the Institute for travel reimbursement.

Both the Institute in the United States and its Islamabad center co-sponsor the Digital Dictionaries for the Minority Languages of Pakistan and work closely with long-term collaborative research programs such as the Harappan Archaeological Excavations.