Email: info@iasrd.com
Email: info@iasrd.com
18 March
From Inquiry to Discovery — A Shared Human Pursuit of Knowledge
Knowledge Has No Borders
On 18 March 1926, the modern Academy of Athens was formally established by Constitutional Decree, its name and heritage connected to Plato's ancient Academy. IASRD does not propose this as the day research "began" — research has no single birthplace — but as a historical anchor for celebrating a global intellectual journey that belongs to everyone.
Research and knowledge-seeking existed thousands of years before these traditions, and across many civilisations. Athens, Nalanda and Baghdad are not presented as the beginning of research, but as symbolic milestones in a much wider global history of inquiry.
Socrates → Plato → Aristotle. Socrates questioned assumptions. Plato founded the Academy in Athens. Aristotle pursued systematic investigation across biology, logic, politics, ethics and the natural world.
Knowledge advances when we have the courage to question.
Nalanda Mahavihara, in present-day India, was an extraordinary centre of organised scholarship for roughly 800 years. The Chinese monk Xuanzang travelled thousands of kilometres to study there and carried knowledge back to China.
Knowledge grows when scholars cross boundaries and ideas are shared.
In Abbasid-era Baghdad, scholars translated and developed knowledge from Greek, Persian, Indian and other traditions. Al-Khwarizmi, Al-Kindi and Hunayn ibn Ishaq carried ideas across languages and disciplines.
Knowledge advances when we examine, translate, challenge and develop ideas.
Research represents a quiet kind of victory — the fight against disease, the search to understand our universe, the questioning of assumptions once accepted as fact. Knowledge accumulates: one researcher asks a question, another challenges the answer, another improves the method, and another begins the next question.
Honouring researchers across every field, career stage and part of the world.
Encouraging responsible, ethical and transparent research practice.
Supporting international partnership and the exchange of ideas across borders.
Recognising women, early-career researchers, the Global South and Indigenous knowledge holders.
Passing understanding from one generation, discipline and community to the next.
Add your voice to the growing community of researchers, institutions and supporters backing the recognition of 18 March as International Researchers' Day.
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Learn more and express interestAthens — Question. Nalanda — Exchange. Baghdad — Advance. The World — Discover.
From Inquiry to Discovery — A Shared Human Pursuit of Knowledge.
Knowledge Has No Borders.
This initiative was formally adopted by the International Association for Social Research Dynamics (IASRD) under Resolution IASRD/RES/2026/003 — International Researchers' Day, dated 18 September 2026.