Despite the chronic shortage of institutional support, research in Kurdish linguistics continues to thrive. Among recent developments, one can mention the International Conference on Kurdish Linguistics, which began as an informal workshop in Bamberg in 2013 and has since grown into a regular international conference series, or the Database of Kurdish Dialects, the first largescale web-accessible dialect survey of Kurdish, hosted at the University of Manchester. What remains a desideratum, however, is a platform for disseminating quality research in a readily accessible format.The new series Bamberg Studies in Kurdish Linguistics (BSKL) aims at filling this gap by providing a publication forum for high-quality research on Kurdish linguistics that is open access, hosted at an established research institution, and committed to high standards of scientific excellence. BSKL adopts a broad stance on what can be considered "Kurdish linguistics", in terms of the languages in focus, the range of topics, and the format of the volumes. The primary criterion is scientific excellence, and the editors are committed to ensuring high standards. It seems very appropriate that the first volume in the series is a selection of contributions to the International Conference on Kurdish Linguistics, held in Amsterdam in 2016, which provides a vivid crosssection of contemporary research in Kurdish linguistics.It has taken several years of planning before we could finally inaugurate the series, and we are extremely grateful to a number of people for their patience and support during that time, in particular the staff at Bamberg University Press, who agreed to the volume conception several years ago and have continued to support it since. Finally, I would like to thank the co-editors of the series, Erik Anonby, Ergin Öpengin and Ludwig Paul, for collaborating with me on the new series.