There are three broad fields of research in which the Institute is involved: genocide studies, diaspora studies, and studies dealing with Armenia. To accomplish this, the Institute sponsors, supports, and encourages multi-disciplinary scholarly research, documentation, conferences, and publications.

The Zoryan Institute is an international center devoted to the research and documentation of contemporary issues related to the history, politics, society, and culture of Armenia and Armenians around the world. Research is conducted both to document past and current events, and to analyze their impact on individuals and institutions in Armenia and the Diaspora. The Institute strives to develop a framework within which people can understand and participate in conceptualizing the critical and fundamental issues dealing with current and future challenges within a global context.

To these ends the Institute stresses the highest standards of scholarship and objectivity in undertaking and supporting multi-disciplinary research, documentation, lectures, seminars, colloquia, and publications in three broad subject areas: Genocide, Diaspora, and Armenia.

The Institute makes its collections and analyses available, and provides research assistance to scholars, writers, journalists, film-makers, government agencies, and other organizations.

Functioning as a resource for facts, ideas and images, the Institute promotes the application of scholarly research on relevant issues to the activities of individuals and organizations, for whom such shared information can be a catalyst.

In one of its earliest undertakings, the Zoryan Institute helped sponsor "The Permanent Peoples' Tribunal on the Armenian Genocide" in 1984, which brought together some of the world's top jurists and Nobel Prize winners to review the legal case for the Armenian Genocide. The Institute published the proceedings of the Tribunal as A Crime of Silence: The Armenian Genocide. It also co-sponsored in 1995 "Problems of Genocide," a major international conference on comparative genocide, in which 30 of the world's leading authorities on the Jewish Holocaust, Armenian, Cambodian, Gypsy and Ukrainian Genocides participated. The proceedings were published by the Zoryan Institute in 1997, and a revised version, Studies in Comparative Genocide, by Macmillan Publishers in 1999. In addition to such conference proceedings, the Institute has published a number of key monographs on genocide, such as Hitler and the Armenian Genocide, and Key Elements in the Turkish Denial of the Armenian Genocide: A Case Study of Distortion and Falsification.

In March 1999, the Institute was asked by a specially appointed subcommittee of the Canadian Parliament to prepare a background report on the Armenian Genocide. The mandate of this subcommittee was to make a recommendation to the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the policy of the Canadian Government with respect to recognizing the Armenian Genocide. In June 1999, the Institute was asked by a member of the U.S. House of Representatives to prepare a report to address allegations made by the Turkish Ambassador in Washington that there was no genocide against the Armenians.

Diaspora studies deal with the mass movement of peoples and seek to analyze and understand the cultural, social, political, and economic issues that arise when different national groups intermingle within a single country or across several states. As its primary forum for these studies, the Zoryan Institute co-publishes, with the University of Toronto Press (www.utpjournals.com/diaspora), the award-winning periodical, Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies. Within its pages, this journal has looked at Mexicans, Italians, Jews, Indians, Africans, Greeks, Chinese, Iranians, Armenians, Filipinos, and Palestinians, and their impact, as well as how they are affected, in various communities around the world.

Armenia studies refers to the history, politics, culture, and sociology of the Armenian people in their nation-state, from Sovietization in 1920 to today. The Institute has addressed such issues as the 1988 earthquake, its effects, relief efforts, and reconstruction; and the impact of the development of Karabagh as a political entity on the Transcaucasus and the surrounding region. One outstanding Zoryan publication in this area is The Karabagh File: Documents and Facts on the Question of Mountainous Karabagh 1918-1988, which was published simultaneously in both English and French and was practically the only information available in the West on the subject, at the beginning of the Karabagh movement in Armenia. Another noteworthy book is The Sumgait Tragedy: Pogroms Against Armenians in Soviet Azerbaijan, which documented through eye-witness testimonies the massacres that took place against the Armenians in Azerbaijan in 1988, and whose introduction was written by noted human rights advocate Yelena Bonner. In May 1998, the Zoryan Institute organized a conference "The Karabagh Movement: Ten Years After” bringing together some of the leading analysts of the region to assess the Karabagh Question in the decade since the eruption of the historic protests that saw hundreds of thousands of Armenians march in support of Karabagh. The proceedings of this conference were published in The Making of Nagorno-Karabagh: From Secession to Republic. In 1991, with the advent of independence, the Institute was asked to provide research materials to help the new Armenian government develop a new constitution.

To make its information approachable to the general public, the Institute has held numerous "Open University" seminars at the University of Toronto, York University, McGill University, Université de Montréal, and Columbia University, in which experts discussed their research and engaged the participants in debate. The Institute has participated in joint programs with such academic organizations as the Centre for Russian and East Europan Studies at the University of Toronto and the Multicultural Historical Society of Ontario.

The Institute holds a large quantity of reference and archival material, including monographs, periodicals, microfilm, photographs, memoirs, personal correspondence, official documents, etc. There is also a collection of audio and video tapes containing carefully prepared oral history interviews with over 600 survivors of the Armenian Genocide.

The Institute makes its collections available and provides research assistance to scholars, writers, journalists, film-makers, government agencies, and other responsible organizations by special arrangement.

"Abel Aganbegyan: Glasnost and the Global Village," September 14, 1990, York University in cooperation with Canada-Russia Business Council.

"Glasnost and Armenia," September 15, 1990, University of Toronto, in cooperation with the Centre for Russian and East Europan Studies.

"Problems of Genocide," April 21-23, 1995, National Academy of Sciences, Yerevan.

"The Armenian Genocide," November 5, 1996, University of Toronto, in cooperation with the Centre for Russian and East Europan Studies.

"Comparative Genocides: Armenians and Ukrainians," April 17, 1997, St. Vladimir's Institute, Toronto.

"The Karabagh Movement 1988-1998," May 2-3, 1998, Cambridge, MA. [This important conference brought together experts from North America, Europe, and Armenia to examine issues relating to Nagorno Karabagh. The papers from this conference will be published by Macmillan in 2000.]

A Corporate Board of Directors governs the Zoryan Institute. This body administers the legal and financial affairs of the organization. The academic program is overseen by an Academic Board of Directors.

Corporate Board of Directors

Varouj Aivazian, Chairman, Prof. of Economics, University of Toronto. Levon Chorbajian, Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts. Arsinée Khanjian, Director of Outreach, Multiple award winning Actress. Migirdic Migirdicyan, Treasurer, President of National Data Corp. of Canada, Ltd.. Greg Sarkissian, President, President of Yorkbridge Capital Corp.. George Shirinian, Secretary, Executive Director of the Zoryan Institute. Roger W. Smith, Professor Emeritus of Government, College of William and Mary. Khachig Tölölyan, Professor of English Literature, Wesleyan University

Academic Board of Directors

Roger W. Smith, Chairman, Professor Emeritus of Government, College of William and Mary. Varouj Aivazian, Chairman, Professor of Economics, University of Toronto. Stephan Astourian, Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley. Yair Auron, Professor, Open University of Israel and Hakibbutzim College of Education, Tel-Aviv. Vahakn Dadrian, Director of Genocide Research, Zoryan Institute. Levon Chorbajian, Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts. Eliz Sanasarian, Professor of Political Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Lisa Siraganian, Assistant Professor of English, Southern Methodist University, Dallas. Khachig Tölölyan, Professor of English Literature, Wesleyan University.

In addition to these officials of the Zoryan Institute, there is a wide-spread, international network of scholars and specialists in a variety of fields, who work with the Institute on specific projects.

I am most impressed by the work of the Zoryan Institute regarding the study of the Genocide. The research and documentation being conducted there is of utmost importance to the entire Armenian community....This must be done not only for ourselves but as a humanitarian service for the benefit of the world, to ensure that crimes of this magnitude and severity are never repeated. George Deukmejian Former Governor of the State of California

We have the highest regard for the work that's being done at Zoryan. Some of their work is extraordinary. Aram Kaloosdian President, Armenian National Institute

The Genocide has been the single most fundamental issue defining the Armenians' identity in this century. Its importance for Armenia and the Diaspora cannot be understated. Vartan Oskanian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Republic of Armenia May 1999

The Zoryan Institute has been a unique center for the development of contemporary Armenian studies, dedicated to objective analysis and intellectual integrity in service of our people.We have particularly appreciated the scope, depth, and prescience of its endeavors. Levon Ter Petrossian President, Republic of Armenia