The Southeast Asia Institute is the flagship for The Australian National University’s outstanding range of expertise on the politics, languages, society, economics and cultures of the region to Australia’s northwest. The Institute brings together the research, teaching and outreach talents of the academics and students of The Australian National University. It creates opportunities for collaboration and provides a point of contact between the university community and the wider world.

The ANU has the largest community of academic specialists on Southeast Asia in the world, outside Southeast Asia itself. Around eighty academics have significant research interests in Southeast Asia, and they supervise close to 200 research students, as well as teaching a strong range of undergraduate and Master’s courses in Southeast Asian Studies. Indonesian, Thai and Vietnamese languages are taught as a full program, and Tetum and Javanese are offered from time to time. The Institute is located within the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, but it serves scholars on Southeast Asia throughout the university.

The University’s strength in Southeast Asian studies is based in a long history of national engagement with the region. ANU has trained several generations of Australian diplomats working in Asia, it has trained ministers in many Southeast Asian governments, its researchers have provided expert advice to administrations in both Southeast Asia and Australia and have been engaged with community groups of many kinds. The University’s Southeast Asia research has strongly shaped national and international understandings of the region. The primary scope of the Institute covers Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor Leste and Vietnam, as well as ASEAN as the major regional organization, but the University’s researchers are also engaged with Southeast Asia’s connections with its neighbours by land and by sea and with the wider world.

The Southeast Asia Institute is led by Director Professor Evelyn Goh, supported by a Working Committee of Southeast Asia experts at the ANU and an Advisory Board. Further enquiries please contact southeastasia.institute@anu.edu.au.

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ANU Southeast Asia Institute

Director

• Professor Evelyn Goh

Working Committee

• Associate Professor Keith Barney
• Dr Wai Yeap (Nicholas) Chan (ECR representative)
• Associate Professor Bjoern Dressel
• Mr Emirza Syailendra (HDR representative)
• Dr Maria Tanyag
• Ms Yanhong Ouyang (CAP Partnerships Office)

Advisory Board

• Dr Meera Ashar (Director of the South Asia Research Institute)
• Associate Professor Nick Cheesman (Director of the Myanmar Research Centre)
• Dr Ben Hillman (Director of the Australian Centre on China in the World)
• Professor Paul Hutchcroft
• Professor Jochen Prantl (CAP Associate Dean International)
• Dr Ross Tapsell (Director of the Malaysia Institute)
• Dr Eve Warburton (Director of the Indonesia Institute)

Director’s Welcome

I was delighted to be appointed Director of the Southeast Asia Institute from August 2022, and am very excited to be working with colleagues across ANU’s College of Asia and the Pacific and other parts of the University to advance and amplify research collaboration and research-based engagement among our many Southeast Asian specialists.

One of my tasks is to bring greater focus to the Institute’s organisation. To this end, I am convening a Working Committee as the main leadership group for the Institute. As the name suggests, I envisage this as a small group of scholars who have existing research interests and agendas centred on different aspects of Southeast Asian studies, who have time, energy and desire to pool our ideas, efforts and networks towards a program of work. I do not expect that any Working Committee can be comprehensive, but I would very much like to select on the basis of colleagues’ interest and availability.

To generate greater strategic focus in the Institute’s contributions, for 2023-24, the Southeast Asia Institute will prioritize initiatives and activities that:

• Develop explicitly regional approaches to the region, including comparative studies. Our endeavours will complement the country-focused efforts of other ANU Regional Institutes; and
• Emphasize the theme of security, broadly-defined. This will include geopolitics and military security, but also the nexi between economics and security, development and security, environment and security, domestic politics and regional security, and ‘non-traditional’ security issues such as climate change, technological challenges, etc.

I am delighted to be cooperating closely with seven CAP colleagues on the Institute’s Working Committee to deliver our program of work for these two years. We are also grateful for the warm support of seven colleagues on the Institute’s new Advisory Board.

I look forward to expanding our membership base and engagement activities across the ANU and with our partners in Southeast Asia, and in government, policy, media, and other non-academic communities.

Evelyn Goh FBA FASSA | Shedden Professor of Strategic Policy Studies Director | Southeast Asia Institute | ANU College of Asia and the Pacific | E: southeastasia.institute@anu.edu.au