The NCAS is a National Centre in Sri Lanka set up by Ordinance in October 2005 under Section 24A of the Universities Act No. 16 of 1978 for the purpose of promoting advanced studies and research mainly in the fields of Humanities and Social Sciences.   The Centre was set up after a few years of discussion and study at the University Grants Commission (UGC), initiated by Professor Senaka Bandaranayake, involving several senior professors in the relevant fields, to address the needs and requirements of human resource development, advanced research studies and academic publications in humanities and social sciences as well as related fields. It was strongly felt that the state of academic contributions in social sciences and related fields compared to natural sciences including medicine is lagging behind or not making the required contribution as they did in earlier times due to several perhaps unavoidable reasons.   A major root cause identified was the lack of opportunities for the increasing number of young academics in the ever expanding university system to undertake their postgraduate studies and doctoral research. Foreign scholarships were hard to come by. Therefore, an initial task of the NCAS was to offer financial grants through Government funding to academics to pursue their MPhils and PhDs at local and overseas universities. So far, the NCAS has provided grants to over 367 academics to conduct their PhD studies.   A new policy orientation has taken place under the patronage of Hon. S. B. Dissanayake, the Minister of Higher Education, who has a considerable experience and an abiding interest in the university sector, with a view to expanding the NCAS activities into more practical and operational research, professional training and academic publications. He is most interested in seeing NCAS making links with international institutions in the coming future. Continuing with the initial objectives, the present Website is a reflection of that new orientation.   The NCAS regularly conducts training workshops for academics and intends to specialize in research methodology.   The NCAS hosts an Intranet at its premises and this Website is linked to some of its pages to be accessed through Internet.   The NCAS will be launching the Sri Lanka Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences by early next year and has already completed some other publications.   The NCAS is home for