Encyclopædia Iranica is a project whose goal is to create a comprehensive and authoritative English-language encyclopedia about the history, culture, and civilization of Iranian peoples from prehistory to modern times.

The Encyclopædia Iranica is dedicated to the study of Iranian civilization in the wider Middle East, the Caucasus, Southeastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent.

The editorial board includes Mohsen Ashtiany, Mahnaz Moazami, and over 40 consulting editors from major international institutions doing research in Iranian studies.

[7] Former long tenured editors include Ahmad Ashraf, Christopher Brunner, Habib Borjian, Kioumars Ghereghlou, Manuchehr Kasheff, Dagmar Riedel and Houra Yavari.

[9] Over the years, Columbia University's Center for Iranian Studies (also founded by Yarshater) continued to coordinate and edit the Encyclopædia, while the EIF substantially sponsored the work.

Following Yarshater's retirement as director of the Center for Iranian Studies in 2016, a dispute began to emerge between Columbia University and the EIF as Columbia unilaterally decided to enter into a contract with Brill, an academic publisher, which subsequently published fascicles 4 and 5 of volume XVI in 2018 and 2019; the EIF protested the move.

[18] In a review of Volume III, Richard W. Bulliet calls Encyclopædia Iranica "not just a necessity for Iranists [but] of inestimable value for everyone concerned with the history and culture of the Middle East".

[21] Professor A. Banuazizi, praised that the encyclopaedia "will be judged as the most significant contribution of our century to the advancement of Iranian studies as a scholarly enterprise".