Perhaps the most lasting legacy of the Silk Roads has been their role in bringing cultures and peoples in contact with each other, and facilitating exchange between them. On a practical level, merchants had to learn the languages and customs of the countries they travelled through, in order to negotiate successfully. Cultural interaction was a vital aspect of material exchange. Moreover, many travelers ventured onto the Silk Roads in order to partake in this process of intellectual and cultural exchange that was taking place in cities along the routes. Knowledge about science, arts and literature, as well as crafts and technologies was shared across the Silk Roads, and in this way, languages, religions and cultures developed and influenced each other. One of the most famous technical advances to have been propagated worldwide by the Silk Roads was the technique of making paper, as well as the development of printing press technology. Similarly, irrigation systems across Central Asia share features that were spread by travelers who not only carried their own cultural knowledge, but also absorbed that of the societies in which they found themselves.

Silk Road Research Center is an independent, nonpartisan research center of Ala-Too International University with the mission of conducting an unbiased research and providing practical innovative recommendations.

We are aimed at promoting and disseminating innovative ideas, democratic and human rights values, fostering the economic and social welfare, and encouraging more open and cooperative international systems.

The Center seeks to bring together a community of scholars committed to expanding the research activities and cumulate academic data in their fields of studies.

The Center is also aimed at providing a platform for discussion for various actors, such as academics, researchers, politicians, members of NGOs, civil society activists, businesspersons, writers, journalists, and others.
Through its seminars, conferences, congresses, publications, books, monographs, periodicals, and articles, the Center raises public awareness and stimulate debate on various public policies and important developments in its fields of study.