The celebration of the 5th anniversary of the "Shahnameh Centre - University of Cambridge" was held on Thursday, September 26, 2019, at the University of Cambridge, England, in attendance of managers and founders of the centre, university professors, and the students, researchers, and enthusiasts of the Great Persia's culture. Dr Shahab Nikman, the managing director of Mana Naqsh Art & Culture Institute, Professor Charles Melville and Dr Firuza Abdullaeva-Melville, the directors of the Shahnameh Centre, and Bita Daryabari, the main sponsor and one of the founders of the centre, attended this ceremony.
Following Mana Naqsh's previous collaborations with this centre, especially in the "Language of Love" international project, this institute collaborated with Shahnameh Centre in the process of holding this ceremony. During the ceremony, the directors of the Shahnameh Centre presented a report on the achievements of the centre over the past 5 years, and Bita Daryabari gave a speech about the vision of the centre in the future and introduced the best cultural research works prepared by the centre and its students. Mana Ensemble also performed a concert in the ceremony.
The Pembroke Centre for Persian and Central Asian Studies has grown out of the Cambridge Shahnama Project, and represents the fulfilment of one of the original aims of that project, to promote Persian studies in Cambridge and across the UK more generally. The seeds for the Centre were planted in 1999, when Professor Charles Melville (Pembroke College, 1969) initiated in collaboration with Professor Robert Hillenbrand of Edinburgh a five-year research project which was supported by the British Academy. Its start is associated with the opening of the Shahnama exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in 2010 to commemorate the millennium of the completion of the Persian national epics, so strongly associated with Iranian cultural identity. The recent endowment made by Bita Daryabari to Pembroke College, Cambridge, in recognition of the work of the Shahnama Project, makes its enhancement and development sustainable for the foreseeable future.