Welcome at the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies!

The Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies (IAOS) is the largest research and teaching institute with a focus on Asia and the Muslim world within Switzerland. Its regional focus is on East and South Asia as well as the Middle East and North Africa. Drawing on the humanities, cultural studies, and the social sciences, scholars at IAOS focus on both historical and contemporary aspects of Asian and Muslim societies. Their research draws on a variety of methods including textual analysis and indexing of original language sources as well as qualitative and/or quantitative fieldwork methods. Moreover, the institute and its researchers benefit from numerous collaborations with research institutions within the regions. One of the IAOS' aims is to highlight and to reflect critically on Asian and Middle Eastern and North African intellectual traditions and discourses, and to bring these to the broader public.