| Established: | (as Institute of Southeast Asian Studies) | ||||||||
| Focus: | South-east Asia | ||||||||
| Chairman: | Chan Heng Chee | ||||||||
| Address: | 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace, Singapore 119614 | ||||||||
| Website: | ISEAS.edu.sg | ||||||||
| Key People: | Choi Shing Kwok, Director & CEOTerence Chong, Deputy CEO & Director of ResearchTan Tai Tiong, Director (Corporate Services) | ||||||||
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The ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute is a research institution and statutory board under the purview of the Ministry of Education in Singapore. It was established by an Act of Parliament in 1968.[1]
Previously known as the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, the organisation was renamed as ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute on 12 August 2015, in honour of Singapore's first President, Yusof Ishak.[2] The institute celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2018, with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong delivering a lecture[3] on 13 March that year.
According to its website, the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute's primary objectives are:
The institute conducts a range of research programmes; holds conferences, workshops, lectures and seminars; publishes briefs, research journals and books; and generally provides a range of research support facilities, including a large library collection.
The country-focused programmes are meant to complement the institute's three basic disciplinary programmes, with the cross-affiliation of researchers between the two sets of programmes helping to encourage research projects which are more comparative in nature and are conceptually bolder.
The five country-specific programmes are Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam (including Indochina).[4]
The publishing arm of the institution has produced more than 2,000 titles, consisting of books and journals, since the early 1970s.[5] ISEAS Publishing is the largest scholarly publisher of research about south-east Asia and Asia-Pacific from within the region and works with many other academic and trade publishers and distributors to disseminate important research and analyses from and about south-east Asia to the rest of the world. In recent years, ISEAS has published an average of 50 new titles a year. In addition, ISEAS Publishing issues the institute's three tri-annual academic journal: Journal of Southeast Asian Economies;[6] [7] Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia;[8] and Contemporary Southeast Asia,[9] as well as the annual Southeast Asian Affairs.[10]
ISEAS books and journals are distributed to over 100 countries worldwide, and are available in both electronic and print versions, via the bookshop located within the institute, and its website.[11]
The library houses over half a million items related to south-east Asia in the area of economics, politics, international relations, culture, and social studies. The collections, built up over decades, are both historical and contemporary, including a range of multimedia titles.[12]
The ISEAS library is open to all members of the public interested in the study of the south-east Asian region.