The primary purpose of the James P. Geiss and Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation is to encourage and sponsor scholarly research and interpretation of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) in China by means of, but not limited to, awards to support research, publications, conferences, lectures, and exhibitions. The Foundation may also support in the same ways the study of the predecessors and successors of the Ming, as well as contemporaries in geographic areas with which the Ming interacted.