A conference will be held on the historical and cultural connections between Iran, India and Central Asia, at Pembroke College, Cambridge, on15-17 December 2014, under the auspices of the programme “Empire and Authority” that makes up one of the three research themes currently sponsored by the British Institute of Persian Studies (BIPS). It is organised in collaboration with the Faculty of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies and the Shahnama Centre for Persian Studies at the University of Cambridge. The conference has several interlocking aims, with the overall purpose of stimulating research in an area that is unduly neglected in the UK and in doing so, to bring together scholars working in different fields that are usually studied in isolation.