One of the goals of Islamia College Peshawar is to become a top-ranked public sector University. In order to achieve this objective the University took the initiative of focusing significantly on academic excellence and research productivity. Apart from other areas of research efficiency, the University has decided to provide the kind of research infrastructure to advance study in the field of investigating in the ancient cultures and civilizations of the region. For the purpose of this, the University proposed the creation of a research centre “Gandhāra Study Centre” to support advance research in the field of humanities and the human past, which would be the first of its kind in the country.
The primary mission of the Centre is to enhance research and encourage scholarly accomplishment of historian of religions, ancient cultures and past governmental system in advance and innovative research methods. The Centre also helps to encourage high quality interdisciplinary research across universities and to support disseminating the scholarly research findings. The aim of the Centre is also to train and develop the next generation of archaeological research leaders and to meet national strategic skill.
The centre not only focuses on latest researches but also aims on regular publication of the researches carried out in the region of Gandhāra. For this purpose the centre publishes “Gandhāran Studies” on regular basis to meet the criteria of the research publication of Higher Education Commission of Pakistan.