LUMS Brings World’s Largest Asian Studies Conference to Pakistan for the First Time

KARACHI: The annual flagship conference of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) titled AAS-in-Asia 2026 will be organized by the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) on September 25-27, 2026. This is the first instance of such a significant academic conference in the field of humanities and social sciences being organized in Pakistan.

The international conference, which is themed “Centering Asia: Refiguring Connections, Recharting Futures,” will host more than 1,000 delegates, who hail from over 37 different countries. Among the delegates will be some of the finest academic minds, who study at prestigious institutions from all over the globe, like Peking University, Tsinghua University, University of Tokyo, University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, and Yale.

AAS-in-Asia has previously been held in South Korea, Indonesia, and Nepal, Japan and India amongst other countries. Its arrival in Pakistan is momentous for LUMS AAS-in-Asia 2026.

“This is an indication of what Pakistan has to offer to the world,” stated Dr. Ali Khan, the Bilquis Dawood Chair and Dean of the Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences (MGSHSS) at LUMS. “It gives us great pleasure to invite scholars from all corners of the globe to Lahore and show them that there is so much more to Pakistan than its news stories.” This is our moment to put Lahore on the global academic map.”

ALSO READ: Norway Reverses Tuition Fee Policy, Signalling Return to Free Higher Education

The conference keynote will be delivered by Dr. Adil Najam, President WWF International, and a globally recognised scholar, whose work spans international relations, environment and development, and South Asian affairs.

“These are researchers asking urgent, consequential questions about the region and its relationships with the world: its politics, cultures, economies, and histories. Holding this discussion in Pakistan, specifically Lahore, is an amazing privilege in making sure that this discussion is held in the very terrain that it seeks to explore," said Dr. Furrukh Khan, the Associate Professor and conference director.

The conference schedule will include presentations from all disciplines ranging from history, politics, anthropology, literature, economics, and the arts among others. This will mirror the wide-ranging nature of the Asian studies discipline. For the Pakistani academics, attending this conference would be an amazing privilege.

They will have a chance to get involved in the discussion about the global trends and also contribute their own research work in the global discussion which is happening at their home turf for once. Scholar Support Fund has been created for ensuring that Pakistani researchers from everywhere in the country attend the conference. For many, this will be their first opportunity to present their work to an international audience.

The conference is the result of a sustained collaboration between LUMS AAS-in-Asia 2026. Dr. Krisna Uk, Consultant Director AAS and Beyond Asia, has been instrumental in shaping the partnership and supporting LUMS through the planning and preparation process.

On the ground, the conference is being led by Tajwar Awan, Senior Project Manager and a LUMS alumna, who has coordinated operations across outreach, sponsorship, programming, and communications. “We want every scholar who comes to Lahore for this conference to leave with a sense of the city, its people, and its intellectual life,” said Tajwar. “We are proud of what we are building.”