An Interesting Research Project: "Islam, Trade and Politics Across the Indian Ocean"

I've recently learned of this interesting project from its website:  

Islam, Trade and Politics Across the Indian Ocean is a research project funded by the British Academy over the period 2009–2012 and administered by the Association of South-East Asian Studies in the United Kingdom (ASEASUK) and the British Institute at Ankara(BIAA). The project is directed by Dr Andrew Peacock (BIAA and St. Andrews University) and Dr Annabel Gallop (ASEASUK and British Academy).

The aim of the project is to investigate links between the lands of the Ottoman Empire and early Republican Turkey on the one hand and the Muslim peoples of South East Asia on the other over the sixteenth to twentieth centuries. The project is interested in all forms of interaction between these two regions, political, religious, literary, commercial and cultural, including exchanges and mutual influences in material culture. The project has conducted research on evidence for these links, and has offered small grants to researchers of all nationalities working on relevant themes.

At the conclusion of the project, an International Workshop From Anatolia to Aceh: Ottomans, Turks and Southeast Asia was held in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, 11–12 January 2012, in association with the International Centre for Aceh and Indian Ocean Studies (ICAIOS) and the State Islamic Institute (IAIN) Ar-Raniry.  The results of the project and workshop are presented in a travelling photographic exhibition, launched in London in 2012 in association with the British Library; which will travel to venues throughout the UK during 2012–2013. We also plan to publish two books: an edited collection of papers from the International Workshop, and a volume of selected documents in Ottoman Turkish, Arabic and Southeast Asian languages.