Established on July 1, 1997, the Harvard University Asia Center was founded as a university-wide interfaculty initiative with an underlying mission to provide an intellectual meeting ground for faculty members, students, scholars, and other professionals engaged with Asia. The Asia Center focuses its initiatives, events, and student and faculty grants on East, South, and Southeast Asia, with an emphasis on topics that cross national boundaries and academic disciplines. Its Publications Program annually publishes a dozen or more titles  on East Asian humanities, many of which have won awards from national and international scholarly associations. With its core lectures, seminar series, and conferences, the Center engages with topics critical to Asia and its connections with other regions, bringing in notable academics, government officials, business leaders, and other specialists as featured speakers and panelists.