Through its research, action, documentation, training, and networking in the intervening years, the centre has been steadily deepening its critical analysis of trends and issues related to women and gender.

Seeking new directions in feminist scholarship, its faculty has initiated and facilitated multidisciplinary explorations, found new institutional partners as well as shared its research findings with a growing network of scholars and activists.

In response to the major economic, political, and cultural shifts and unanticipated challenges that have brought us into the twenty-first century, CWDS is effecting a synergy between existing concerns and new compulsions.

The major activities of the Centre include: In its formative years, an underlying commitment of the CWDS was to play the role of catalyst, stimulating processes that would work towards the constitutional goals of women's equality and participation in all aspects of national life.

Ongoing research work undertaken by the centre is quickly brought out through its Occasional Papers series and monographs, apart from regular contributions through books, articles and reports.

Since its creation, this first national level photographic archive on women for the period 1875-1947 has taken on multiple forms, through a traveling exhibition, a series of calendars and a major book.

Faculty of the Centre have been actively if informally contributing through lectures and workshops to developing the teaching, pedagogy and curriculum creation of women's studies in different contexts.

In the late 90s, the CWDS initiated the idea of using the UGC refresher course structure to introduce women's studies to college and university teachers, which was subsequently taken up in different parts of the country with considerable success.