Kathmandu Branch Office

The SAI Kathmandu Office is affiliated with Heidelberg University’s South Asia Institute (SAI). The SAI was established in 1962 and is one of Europe’s leading teaching and research institutes focusing on South Asia (Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka). The SAI Kathmandu Office signed its first Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Tribhuvan University in 1987. At that time, it was closely related to the Nepal Research Centre (NRC). The MoU has been renewed for five-years terms ever since. Its fundamentally collaborative and inclusive nature has allowed the SAI Kathmandu Office to become a well-established research institute in Kathmandu. Bringing together scholars and practitioners, it aims to link expertise and encourages synergies between disciplines, regions, and practices. To advance that understanding it works together with academic, cultural, and educational institutions. Close links exist with the ANHS Kathmandu Research Center, Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies (CNAS), School for International Training (SIT), Social Science Baha and Martin Chautari. In the areas of Asian literature, cinema, and art it collaborates with ArTree Nepal, Photo Circle, Saraf Foundation, Srijanalaya, and The Nepal Picture Library.

In October 2018 the SAI Kathmandu Office enlarged its premises and now also houses the Research Unit “Documents on the History of Religion and Law of Premodern Nepal” of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) of Hamburg University, thus forming the Nepal Research Bhavan