The International Research Project on Regional Autonomy of Ethnic Minorities is an international network of scholars and researchers designed to explore systems of political autonomy for ethnic minorities, and to facilitate original research. The project supports sustained dialogue on three themes: assessment of the current state of autonomy systems; identification of issues of interest and concern; and shared lessons through comparative analysis. The first phase of the project was the International Workshop on Regional Autonomy of Ethnic Minorities, which was hosted June 22–24, 2001, in Beijing by the State Ethnic Affairs Commission (SEAC) of the People’s Republic of China, in cooperation with Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s School of Humanities and Social Science. Following this meeting, the partnership was expanded to include the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University in Sweden, and the Office of the High Commissioner on National Minorities at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The second International Conference on Regional Autonomy of Ethnic Minorities was hosted by Uppsala University and the government of Aland, Finland, in June 2003. At this conference three working groups of international scholars were established: Autonomy & Political Participation, Forms of Autonomy, and Autonomy & External Actors. Following a year of preliminary meetings of these working groups, a third conference was held again at Uppsala in June 2004 during which the working groups presented their planned research and a fourth working group was formed: Autonomy and Conflict Resolution. The partnership was then expanded to include the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore