The ECSAS has met regularly since 1968, and has provided an important opportunity to discuss current research and scholarship on topics relating to South Asia within the humanities and social sciences. The ECSAS conferences now operate under the auspices of the European Association for South Asian Studies (EASAS), a charitable, academic association engaged in the support of research and teaching concerning South Asia with regard to all periods and fields of study.

ECSAS will celebrate its 25th edition in Paris, hosted at the EHESS (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales — School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences). The main institutional organizer is the CEIAS (Centre d’Études de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud—Center for South Asian Studies, UMR 8564 CNRS/EHESS), which is the largest French research institute in the social sciences dealing with the Indian subcontinent. Created in the mid-1950s by Louis Dumont, the Center’s original aim was to renew the study of South Asia by combining social science-based methods and findings with those of classical Indology.