There seems to be a pervasive sense that social science research in all south Asian countries is in deep crisis and that the great institutions of social science research built in the 1950s and 1960s are in some sort of terminal decline. A study of social science research in south Asia finds, however, that the story is not quite so simple. Not all regions, institutions or disciplines share a sense of decline or crisis. In some countries such as Nepal, for instance, this is partly because the foundations of serious social science research have not been adequately created; and in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan and some regions of India, existing institutions have declined because of the cumulative impact of the political circumstances in which they had to operate, the shortage in the assured government funding of established institutions and other factors.